


Aralya Agarea

by EvilFuzzy9



Category: Original Work
Genre: Action/Adventure, Agarea, Bath Houses, Domestic Fluff, Engagement, Exposition, Fluff, Gen, Humor, I'm Not A Great Writer, Novel, One-Sided Attraction, Original Universe, Possibly Unrequited Love, Shounen Fights, Slow Build, Step-Sibling Incest, Step-siblings, Uncertain Plot, Worldbuilding, conlang
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-04
Updated: 2016-11-27
Packaged: 2018-08-19 13:36:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 32,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8210500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EvilFuzzy9/pseuds/EvilFuzzy9
Summary: How do you begin a story? How do you end it? Where does it go in its course? These are questions Lebera cannot answer. But they are valid questions all the same, most especially when it means the tale of life and the fate of nations. That's probably unimportant, though.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is my attempt at creating an original story. More precisely, this is a first draft that I will write like I would any multichapter fanfic, if only so I can get something done with it. Ideally I'll wind up producing a final draft fit for publication, if anyone will have it. Call it a third-life crisis, if that suits you.

If one were to look on Amanta from the peak of the nearest mountain, it would appear low and sprawling, a shallow bowl through which ran a slender rope of water that branched into countless lesser strands of gossamer fluid amidst the dimpling of many buildings and the ridges of three great walls. One would see huge swathes of green and yellow on the sides of the bowl, stepped farmlands climbing in a gentle gradient, and two fine crevices, narrow ravines through which the wide river flowed in and out.

One would note the partition of the three encircling walls, each within the other. The outermost was angular and symmetrical, a massive defense and retainer, its length dotted with towers, bulwarks, and bastions. The innermost wall was small and irregular, an oblong and faintly triangular shape that flattened on one side along the banks of the river. The middle wall formed a ring.

The inmost was the wall of a city that had grown naturally over the course of many generations, the wall of Old Amanta that served now as the home of the nobility, _Turumba_. The middle wall was an addition to contain the overflow of economic boom, a region now inhabited by wealthy merchants, _Kengamba_. The outer wall was newest, largest, and most robust—a strictly planned defense against invasion—and it contained the homes of the masses, _Byohamba_.

Amanta was a great city, a vast metropolis held in the bosom of an uncanny geology, rimmed on the outside by cliffs like the sheer face of a plateau. The inside was like a saucer that slowly dipped down to a level center, as if the surface of the plateau had been scooped out by some great hand, and this was where the city proper resided. This saucer, the effective fourth wall of Amanta, could be penetrated only along the river, and its rim was circled by a rain-fed moat that supplied aqueducts to water the stepped fields on the inner slopes.

Here was the heart of Amalite governance, the seat of power in the six-fold confederacy of that noble kingdom, an alliance of need forged by time and adversity into a tight cohesion of language and culture. Here was the blessed land of Emen, the god of Wodaz who led his people through the wastes and over the mountains into this wide, fertile country where they made their home and prospered. This was Amanta, the resting place of the patriarch and capital of Menaltya, the old and ceremonied religion of Emenism.

To its inhabitants Amanta was many things. It was a small kingdom unto itself, a land of plenty and providence blessed beyond compare. It was a temple to Emen, the seat of reasoned faith and doctrine throughout the land, a holy city and center of learning. It was a shelter and defense against the depredations of monsters and beasts, a guarded fortress surpassed by no other work of men. But most of all it was, to many millions of people, no more and no less than _home_.

Byohamba was a lively place. Buildings were clustered together here and there in large packs, blocks and bundles of dwellings that creeped into just about every spare location. There were community dorms at regular intervals, as well as inns and apartment complexes, places to live. There were maybe a dozen different markets throughout the sector, occupied by grocers and smithies and masons and carpenters, places of trade and commerce. There were theaters and circuses and sporting arcades, parks and auditoriums, places of culture and recreation.

Masses of humanity frequented Byohamba's streets in deafening droves of every color, persons of every age, gender, and ethnicity represented to some extent or other in the crowds of the city. There were diminutive, pygmy Tzeni with their quick humors and childlike bodies. There were tall, dark Umben with large hands and broad faces, and stocky Swazi with deep eyes and square jaws. There were pale Patra with prominent noses, and stoic Tlek'sui with high cheek bones, and lanky Amali with bright eyes and full lips.

Swarthy were many, dark of face and hair. Akin were Amali, Swazi, and Umben. Together these three peoples came to Amal, the newest to these lands yet most widely spread, with the blessings of Emen prospering and flourishing exceedingly well. The Amali were foremost in reputation as the race of the prophet Wodaz, with much lore and many crafts. The Swazi were fishermen and able mariners, famed explorers and adventurers. The Umben were agrarian, sowers of crops and tamers of beasts, known for their size and strength.

More distantly akin were Patra and Tlek'sui, their two peoples being long sundered in blood, tongue, and culture. The Tlek'sui were most rustic and "wild" of the peoples, many favoring still tribal societies and hunter-gatherer lifestyles on the southeastern peninsula they called home. The Patra were a race in exile, having been driven from the northern lands of Paramba in those ancient wars that precipitated the formation of this united Amalite kingdom.

Least like their fellows were Tzeni, such that some said they were rather a kind of dwarf, for in language and stature they were much like the _tabuv_ of Dweorgia. Tzeni themselves disputed this fiercely, being as a rule least friendly to dwarves of all humans save Tlek'sui, and they asserted their humanity in terms of bodily constitution and the paucity of beards. But whatever their origins, they were the most ancient of the peoples to inhabit these lands, and their traditional home was in the hills and western highlands.

All these peoples could be found, to some extent or other, in Amanta. To describe even just a hundredth of all the households and families in Byohamba, the home of the masses, would be the work of a lifetime and many extensive volumes. But this is not an encyclopedia, nor a book of census records. This is a story, and once the setting is within reason established, one may finally move on to the matters of actual interest.

Now, there were many streets in Byohamba, as might be expected of a sector of so great a city as Amanta. One of these streets was Corn Row, so named for the fact that it was one of the roads along which grain from the outlying farms was brought into the city. It was therefore a reasonably nice street. There were farmer's markets held in the square, and civic granaries in which surplus was stored against leaner times.

Many families lived on Corn Row. Some were relatives of the farmers who lived outside the walls, while others made a living doing trade with the farmers for goods or services they could not easily get out in the countryside.

Lebera's family was a little of both. She had aunts and uncles and cousins who lived out on the farms, and her own family made a modest living as carpenters. Her father was good at mending carts and wagons, and her mother was handy with a whittling knife. Her brother had taken up the family business, too, and he already had a modest reputation in the construction of furniture.

Lebera grew up around sawdust and hammers and axes and knives. The smell of fresh wood, the feel of its grain running under fingers, the sounds of steady sawing and hammering—all these things were part of her world from an early age, sensations that defined a great part of her life's core experience. She remembered hands sticky with sap that brought in lumber for her father, the swarthy, gray-bearded old blacksmith who made their nails, and a stream of old customers, familiar faces mostly dark as coal from a life of working outdoors.

She used to know the names of all the people who frequented her family's shop. Awan, Esse'e, Barak, Lar, Duya, Moteyo... she used to help around the shop in her youth, attending to customers with a cheery smile and childish eagerness. They'd always grin and greet her so warmly, saying what a big girl she was to be helping out so with the family business. This used to make her feel very proud.

This was bittersweet to look back on, as were all recollections of childhood. Young still she was by nearly all reckoning, but a child no longer, not for many years. She was a woman, and with every day it seemed her youthful memories grew slightly more distant. It made her feel older than she had any right to think of herself, when she looked at people she had known as toddlers and saw that they were coming, themselves, into adulthood.

Her hands were no longer those of a carpenter's daughter. Her fingers did not fit around a hammer with such ease as they once knew, and the whiff of wood varnish struck her sharply. Her hands were strong and calloused, but not as a carpenter's would be. Her work was other than her family's, a career she had pursued at a young age in all the impetuous humor of youth, and one she had stuck to out of sheer stubborn resolve.

But that was neither here nor there.

Lebera looked at her reflection in the mirror. The colors were elsewise from reality, this being a mirror of polished brass, and somewhere in her mind she knew the alignment of her features to be the reverse of what she saw. But it was a decent representation, nonetheless.

Absently she ran a finger through her hair. It was curly and close, and its color quite dark. It was washed and well tended, now, tied back in an itchy sort of way. She turned her face to examine herself from a three quarter angle, tracing the sculpted shape of her chin and cheeks. She felt a little silly to be preening in front of the mirror like this, and she wasn't entirely sure what to do next. She'd never cared for overgrooming, and things like make up were largely alien to her.

 _Not like Vera,_ she thought. _There's someone who knows how to look stunning. How to tidy herself up._

It was foolish to think this, however. She was Lebera, not Vera. Nor was she her mother who had always managed to look beautiful in her daughter's eyes, even now as her face weathered and wrinkled with the advance of middle age. It wasn't like her to fuss overmuch with looking pretty. Lebera was a woman of reasonably attractive features, in her own opinion, but the niceties of fashion were beyond her.

And frankly, she wouldn't bother with all this fuss if it were up to her alone. But her mom wanted her to look nice—she wanted tonight to be _perfect_ , and in her eyes that included dressing her daughter up the best she could manage. Lebera kind of understood the motive behind it, and she could sympathize with her mother's desires. It wasn't every day one's eldest child brought home their fiance, after all.

Or was it _fiancee_?

Lebera tried to remember the correct term. _Tarantwe_ , wasn't it? Or was it _taren?_ No... sheesh, this was confusing. _Atara_ was fine, nice and straightforward. _Lover_ would do to describe the man and her relations with him. And it said something about how prominent the language had become to her through her work that Lebera found herself thinking nearly as much in Lengua-Dweorgian as in her native Amalwa. But that was irrelevant to her situation. What mattered now was satisfying her mom as to the state of her dress.

"It looks perfect, mom. You don't need to bother with anything more."

Kala gave her daughter a sharp look, and she tutted.

"Don't give me that. You just want to slip off before I'm done," she said. "But if I take my eyes off you for one second, you'll go and get that nice dress torn and dirty."

Lebera felt her cheeks warm. "I'm not a little girl anymore, mom. I won't make a mess of it."

Kala's expression took on a hint of mischief.

"No? Perhaps not until Tzinte gets here. But try not to tear it when you two are alone, okay? You aren't married yet," Kala said, inflecting her tone with a lyrical humor. "I want my daughter to look nice and lovely for her future husband."

"Ah... You make it sound weird, when you say it like that," Lebera mumbled, worrying at her hair. It was done up rather more fancily than she was accustomed to, and the way it tugged at her scalp made the skin itch. "He's just..."

"Don't be embarrassed," said Kala. "You're a distinguished young woman of rising esteem. It's only natural you would marry above our family. And while I'm sure Lord Tzinte is madly in love with you, you should still make the effort. I did at least this much to snare your father, and we were of the same station."

Lebera laughed despite herself.

"You make it sound so conniving, mom! We're just in love." It gave her a pleasant sort of tingle to say this, even if she'd said plenty of times before, and she couldn't help briefly grinning in a rather foolish sort of manner. "And don't call him _lord_ , that makes it even weirder. He's not like that. He's just an honest man from a well-known family."

"I should _hope_ he's honest," said Kala wryly. "He is likely to be a very important person someday. As are you, if all goes well. But if he's honest, he should make a good husband."

"Is that all it takes?" said Lebera. "Honesty?"

"Honest men are poor liars," was Kala's answer.

Lebera shook her head. "Well, if that's what you think, mom... But I'm sure we'll be fine—as sure as I am that I _look_ just fine. No need for any further fuss over my hair or my dress."

She made to get up from the chair, looking at the brass mirror propped against the wall. The room was cramped, and the washbasin threatened to trip her up, but it was her ultimately her mother who stopped her from leaving, pressing a firm hand onto her daughter's shoulder and giving it a warning squeeze.

With a longsuffering sigh, Lebera reluctantly consented to be pushed back onto her seat.

"You aren't escaping me that easily," said her mother. "It's been how long since you've been home, dear? I hardly see you these days! This is important bonding time for us."

"I'd be happy to bond," Lebera said, fidgeting as her mom reached for a careworn jar of some faintly flower scented cream. "I like bonding. Bonding is _great_. But does it have to be like this?"

"Yes," said Kala stubbornly, a stiff pertinacity that made Lebera think ruefully of how she herself had so often been called stubborn. "It's the only thing I seem to have in common with you these days, Lebe."

"That's not true," Lebera said, more because THIS was not a shared interest than for any wealth of alternative commonalities. Because truth be told, there really wasn't much similarity between her and her mom; not insofar as hobbies, temper, or character.

"Hmmm." Kala hummed as she smeared her forefingers with a dab of white cream, and bringing them up to Lebera's cheek she began rubbing it into her daughter's skin.

Lebera winced at the coolness of the ointment, and she had to fight the urge to squirm and pull away as her mom laved her cheeks. She felt like a little girl fidgeting on the stool and trying to get away as she was given a bath. But she was held in place by an iron grip, and also by her own refusal to act childishly.

She was a grown woman, for God's sake! She could sit still and endure a little discomfort. It felt especially embarrassing to be that bothered by this when she prided herself so much otherwise on her toughness and grit. Pain could be numbed, though, and weariness you could push through. Mild discomfort had no off switch, however, and because of this it was so much more _maddening_.

Such was the paradoxical nature of man, or so Lebera would think if she were of a more philosophical bent. But she was a very practical sort of person, in the end, and she saved philosophy for the scholars and the priests. Nonetheless she did remark in her own mind how absurd it was that she could get so flustered by something as simple as the application of ointment.

"Hold still," Kala said. "You'll get it in your eye if you wriggle about like that."

"I'm not wriggling," Lebera protested. She consciously stiffened her posture to try and keep from moving, but the eye nearer her mom's fingers squeezed itself tellingly shut.

"What do you call it, then?"

"Uh... squirming?" Lebera answered, unable to think of anything better.

A beat.

"Right. Squirming. Try not to do that, then," Kala said dryly.

Lebera winced, embarrassed, and looked once more at her reflection to try and distract herself. She surveyed her dress in the mirror. It was a simple garment to her eye, but she had never given much thought to these matters. She had, as a kid, been what some called "boyish" and others "rambunctious": a rough-housing, horse-playing, wrestle-in-the-street sort of girl. Fashion was never an interest of hers, and mostly she just favored clothing that was practical for her trade.

Still, she mused that this dress looked _nice_. It suited her well in a way that she could not explain or describe, beyond saying that it just looked good on her. She supposed there were girls who would look nicer in the dress, perhaps, and girls who would look nicer than her out of it, but she wasn't too bothered by that notion. It had never been her looks that she most thought about, after all.

"What is this stuff, anyways?" she asked as her mom rubbed a last bit of the flower-smelling cream over her nose.

" _Mazatisi duya_ ," said Kala. "It makes your skin soft."

"So you're putting it on my face?" said Lebera, bemused.

"It helps you look young and pretty."

"I'm young enough, I think!" Lebera laughed. "Just _pretty_ should suffice."

"Well, they go together," Kala said. "But there. Don't you look much better, now?"

Lebera glanced into the mirror, and she surveyed herself for a long, quiet moment. In all honesty, she could make out very little significant difference. To her own eye she looked much the same now as before. If the cream had an actual effect, then it wasn't anything she noticed.

"Yeah. Loads better," she said despite this, knowing that was what her mother would want to hear.

Kala smiled.

"I know you're just saying that," she said. "But it really does help bring out your beauty. Doing all of this, I mean."

"If you think so," said Lebera dubiously, shrugging. "I'll take your word for it."

Kala rolled her eyes.

"Oh, _honestly._ "

 

Runa and Aine were father and son. Despite this, the resemblance between them was only slight. Aine took much more after his mother, and in his youth besides he was slender and fresh-faced where his father was thickset and craggy. Runa was a burly man with broad hands and muscled arms, a short beard and sunken eyes. Aine was lean and lissom with soft features, boyishly handsome and possessed of long, graceful fingers that were suited to subtle work.

Runa had the air of a reliable, down-to-earth tradesman. Aine seemed more like an artist, bright-eyed and occasionally introspective. Runa spoke in a deep, booming baritone while Aine's voice was a gentle tenor. Runa was open and opinionated, but friendly, while Aine was pensive and soft-spoken, but abrasive. In every way, or nearly so, the two of them were much contrasted.

Still, they were father and son.

"Sit, Hal. _Sit_."

Runa addressed the family dog, a golden furred hunting hound bred by one of Kala's cousins in the countryside. His face was screwed up into a very serious kind of look, and he spoke with a firm, commanding tone.

Hal cocked his head, ears perking up at the mention of his name. Unperturbed by the order, he barked and wagged his tail.

"No, _sit_ ," said Aine, placing a hand on the dog's hindquarters and lightly pushing down.

Hal's hindlegs were unbending, and turning he sprang up to lick Aine's face. The young man pulled back with a sound of disgust, and he glowered at Hal as he wiped the drool from his cheek. He laughed a little despite himself. Inwardly, a part of him was just grateful that he hadn't been licked on the mouth.

"He'll never listen like that," said Granny Yui, a hint of amusement in her aged voice. She sat in a rocking chair with a shawl about her slight frame, her face brown and wrinkled, her bony, arthritic fingers clasping the arms of her chair. "You need to be authoritative."

"I have plenty authority," said Runa petulantly. "This dog is just an idiot. _Sit_ , Hal! Sit now, or I'll lock you in the woodshed for the night!"

"You won't do that," said Yui. "And he knows it. He'll whine and scratch until you let him out, and nothing will be accomplished. You boys are too indulgent."

"We aren't," said Aine defensively. Firmly, he added: " _Sit!_ "

Hal stood happily in place, looking from one man to the other. His tongue lolled out and his tail swished through the air, dark brown eyes glimmering in the lamplight. It was gloaming through the window.

Aine's lips curled despite himself. Runa looked deeply exasperated.

Both father and son exchanged a look.

"Sit, boy," said Runa in a wheedling voice, facing the dog. "Sit. Sit!"

"Siddown," said Aine, looking the dog right in the eye. "Sit down, Hal!"

Finally, seeming to get what his masters wanted, Hal sat down on his haunches and closed his mouth. His tail went still, and his posture brought to mind a dutiful servant awaiting command. Aine and Runa shared triumphant expressions.

"See, mom?" said Runa to his mother-in-law. "I know what I'm doing. Hal is just a little—"

Hal barked excitedly at the mention of his name and the lapse in the atmosphere, and eagerly he shot up like a spring, rearing up on his hind legs and putting his forepaws to Runa's chest, wagging his tail with a furious _twhap-thwap-thwap_ and panting heavily. Runa flinched at the smell of the dog's breath right there in his face, and he turned his face away when Hal started licking his neck.

"Gah! No, bad dog!" Aine said. "Down! Down, boy!"

Yui laughed, a kind of vindictive satisfaction in her face.

"Come, come, now!" she said to Hal, catching the dog's attention. "Here, boy. Come."

Hal got off of Runa, and with no further ado he trotted panting and wagging over to Yui. He stopped expectantly right at her feet, looking up at her and seeming to radiate pure, dedicated obedience in his simple canine fashion.

Yui said nothing and simply locked eyes with Hal. For a moment the two stared at each other.

Then Hal sat and closed his mouth once more, before laying his head on the elderly woman's lap. Pleased that she had made her point, Yui proceeded to scratch Hal twice behind the ear and pat him once on the head.

"Good dog," she said in her thin voice. "Yes, just like that."

Runa threw up his hands in exasperation.

"I give up," he said. "That dog will be the death of me."

"You spoil him," said Granny Yui simply, lazily petting Hal. "It's about knowing when to be firm."

"I'm _plenty_ firm," Aine mumbled petulantly.

"Well, whatever. As long as he behaves, I don't care," Runa grumbled at length. He took a deep breath before somewhat relaxing. "Can you keep him under control?"

"I raised three boys and Kala," said Yui. "I can handle one dog."

Hal thumped the floor once with a wag of his tail, as if in agreement.

"Hey," came a voice from the hall. "What's all the racket about?"

Runa and Aine turned to face the speaker, recognizing her voice. The former smiled when he saw his wife following their daughter into the room. The latter looked intently at his sister, pursing his lips.

Lebera walked into the den and looked first at her father, then at her grandmother, and lastly at her brother. She was nicely dressed, much more finely than she was used, and her walk was a little stiff. Kala as well had clearly cleaned herself up, and she looked at her husband with a glowing smile.

"Well, that took you long enough," said Runa goodnaturedly.

"Was Hal being a nuisance?" asked Kala, chuckling.

"Oh, we've got him under control now..." Runa mumbled.

"He means I took care of it for them," said Yui. "But it was amusing to watch them bumble. Come closer, though, Lebera! I want to see my granddaughter looking lovely in her dress."

Kala put a hand on Lebera's back, and the young woman went over to her grandmother. Then Kala looked to Aine and Runa. She nodded at her son's state of dress, but looked despairingly at her husband.

"Runa, dear... why are your clothes so disheveled? And you aren't wearing the nice vest I picked out for you, either."

"I didn't want to get it dirty," said Runa evasively. "We can leave it for now, dear."

"Come on," Kala sighed, shaking her head and grabbing his hand. "Let's go and get you straightened up. It's no wonder Lebera is so difficult, learning from you..."

The two of them left the room. Aine was left standing awkwardly off to the side, while Hal curled up at Granny Yui's feet and Lebera presented herself for inspection. Softly clearing his throat, Aine looked once around the room before settling his eyes on his sister.

"Closer, child. My eyes aren't what they used to be."

Yui stretched out one of her hands to cup Lebera's cheek as the girl drew nearer. Her rocking chair was still, and she squinted up at her granddaughter with watery eyes. Deep, dark eyes surveyed Lebera with the light of a slow-burning flame, and a wrinkled mouth curled into a soft, warm smile.

Yui's face had that oddly shrunken look of the very old, shriveled like an apple left out in the sun, and her hands were frail and bony. Once she had been a very striking sort of woman, but with age she traded sensuality for sagacity. The years had only sharpened her wits, and her grip could still be remarkably firm.

"What do you think, Gran?" murmured Lebera. "How do I look?"

"Splendid," Yui breathed. "I am blessed to have been spared this long. You do this family proud, child."

"I'm just doing what I want," said Lebera a little sheepishly. "It's nothing like pride or honor."

"You're a good girl," Yui said. "Don't be so modest that I can't praise you a little. You deserve it."

Lebera scratched the back of her neck, looking abashed. It was always strange to see her act shyly. It was quite unlike her usual demeanor, and those who knew her well were thrown out of nearly all reckoning on the rare occasions when she got like this. Lebera was bold and forward by nature. Few things, VERY few things, could really fluster her. But she had her weak spots, just like everyone else. Praise for something other than her spirit or her skill in her trade was uncommon, and she was actually rather modest about most things.

"Modesty is good, though," Lebera said. "Or humility, at least."

"It's good," agreed Yui. "You oughtn't think of yourself as a better person than others—that's a sin. But so is thinking of yourself as a worse person than others. Everyone is on equal grounds before Emen."

"I don't think I'm worse than others!" Lebera laughed. "I'm weak to pride, though. I can get full of myself easy if I'm not careful."

"Not without reason. You are an exceptional child, Lebe."

"Not me," Lebera said. "I'm just good at what I do. And I'm not so noble—or ignoble—to court Tzinte to raise my station, or our family's. I simply like him."

"I never said you were such a person," Yui replied reasonably. "Or I didn't mean to. You're a good, honest girl."

There was a moment's silence. Lebera shifted awkwardly where she stood, a half thoughtful expression dancing across her face. She looked to the clock, a thing of cogs and wheels she'd bought for the house with her first paycheck, several years ago. It was a bit of a luxury item, a dwarven import she'd purchased in Kengamba.

She only had a general idea of how the thing worked. She understood concepts like gears turning gears and so on, of course, she wasn't a _child_ —but the intricacy of mechanism astounded her, when she stopped to think about it. With her brief but decent formal learning, she had some grasp of how difficult it would really be to build such a thing. Every gear needed to turn the next in line, every part had a precise and dedicated purpose such that even a slight misalignment would make the entire thing inoperable.

It wasn't something you could make up as you went. It had to be planned out from step one. You had to know exactly what you wanted, and exactly how you would accomplish it. Perfection was the only acceptable outcome: anything less was worthless. Lebera could never make a thing like that clock. Such mechanical workmanship needed a very different mind than hers, a very precise and orderly mind.

So she marveled yet again, briefly, at the intricacy of the clockwork. It never failed to amaze her, when she took the time to consider it.

Lebera sighed.

"I know," she said absently. "I love you too, Gran."

"I didn't say that," remarked Yui. "But I did mean as much. I love you, too, and I am proud of you. We all are."

"Thanks."

Lebera then turned to face her brother while Granny Yui turned her attentions back to a doleful looking Hal.

Aine met Lebera's eyes with an unreadable expression.

It would be difficult to adequately describe the relationship between Aine and Lebera. They were step-siblings, for a start, Lebera the daughter of Runa and Aine the son of Kala, yet they knew each other from as far back as either one could recall. Their parents married when they were very young, and neither could remember a time when the other hadn't been there as a sibling. In youth this had been no problem, and they had loved each other dearly.

But with maturity came new awareness, and as they each forged their own identities they began to drift apart. Lebera, being the older by a few years, went out and made her own way in the world. Aine stayed behind and learned the trade of his stepfather. They still loved each other, but there was an awkwardness between them now, a little more perhaps on Aine's side than Lebera's, but ultimately shared nonetheless.

Aine looked at Lebera with a stony expression, but his eyes were soft. Lebera smiled at Aine and clapsed her hands before her. The face she wore betrayed a gleam of sisterly mischief, but also a current of serious intention.

"Well, Ai? how do I look?"

"Like you'll punch me if I say the wrong thing," said Aine dryly.

"Ridiculous!" Lebera theatrically exclaimed. "As if I would _ever_ hit my sweet little brother."

"Sure, and I'm engaged to Princess Vera," Aine quipped. "You look like you always do. No worse, at least."

"Getting a compliment out of you is like pulling teeth. I don't really care what you think, though."

"Don't pester me for my opinon, then."

Lebera threw her arm around Aine's shoulder and pulled him into a one-armed hug. With her brother being on the shorter side while she was rather tall, this much emphasized the difference between them as far as stature. She held him to her bosom and rubbed her knuckles through his close-shorn hair.

Aine squirmed and struggled to get out of her hold, but to no avail. Lebera was too strong for him to break out.

"What are you, Lebe, _eight_?" he said. "Quit it! Lemme go!"

"Nah. I don't feel like it," Lebera said. "I like to see you squirm."

"Fine, you look good," Aine grunted, his face warm. "Is that what you want to hear?"

"I couldn't care less about that," said Lebera airily. "But I guess I can let you go. I'm a nice person like that."

She unleashed her brother and smiled innocently. Aine glowered and adjusted his clothes, straightening them out. He did not look Lebera in the eye.

"You're a menace," he muttered. "Act your age, for God's sake! We aren't kids anymore."

"Play nice, you two," called Granny Yui in a mildly warning tone of voice. Hal whined.

"We are, we are," said Lebera placatingly, a smile still adorning her face.

"Yeah," Aine said a little sourly. "We're best friends."

Lebera elbowed him.


	2. Chapter 2

A man of impressive stature, cloaked and hooded, walked down _Yatya_ making for _Uchatya_. That is to say, he went down Blade Street as one might who had Corn Row as their destination. His pace was swift but unhurried, long legs swallowing up the length of the street in very little time. His cloak was one that might have been rather fine, were it not quite so worn and faded. He stood head and shoulders over most other pedestrians, though few walked this particular street at this particular hour.

Amanta was a prosperous city, but to say that it did not have its dangerous parts would be to flatly dissemble. No city so large could be all paved with gold and roofed with silver. Even with shelters and soup kitchens and many charities to help the less fortunate, there were inevitably those who fell on hard times, or who, finding themselves disenfranchised for various reasons, took to antisocial or criminal behavior.

It wasn't called Blade Street because knives were sold there. Yatya was in one of the rougher parts of the city, to be quite frank, a quarter that most would prefer to go around, a crevice into which the unlucky or unfriendly tended to drift and get stuck. Few people lived here, and the dilapidated state of its buildings was attractive to certain sorts: penniless squatters and aimless delinquents, mostly.

The former were harmless—generally—and most of the latter were just misfortunate or misguided youths, born perhaps into less than advantageous situations and finding themselves at a troubling crossroads of life, uncertain what to do with themselves and how to make their way in the world. Only a very few were genuinely nasty or mean-spirited, but one bad apple could spoil a bunch, as it was said.

Still, regardless of the reasons for their delinquency or the nature of their youthful rebellion, there were some dangerous sorts among the lot. While most were content with loitering or petty vandalism, it was the few who engaged in more violent pastimes that caused Yatya to be avoided by most. There were assaults and waylayings, muggings and worse. It wasn't that rare for someone to turn up dead on the side of the street, stabbed or beaten.

Some people would call Yatya a lawless, perilous corner of Amanta. While the community and the constabulary did what they could to maintain the peace and police the area, still there were inevitably offenses that occurred, and here on Blade Street they tended to be more common and more violent than elsewhere. It wasn't the worst place in the world by a long shot, but it was close to the worst in Amanta.

Tzinte, being an optimist in his way, took heart at this thought. The worst part of the city (or near enough) this might have been, but at least it wasn't anywhere close to such a den of blood and sin as you would find on any street corner in Sangera, or so it was said. And being also a man of great confidence and no small physical courage, as well as a man of considerable size and bodily strength, he did not shy from passing through even such a place as this.

Most people wouldn't cross Tzinte. Not because of any meanness or vengeful spirit on his part—he was a gentleman in nearly all respects, a fair sport and patient soul—but at seven foot five and nigh on three hundred pounds of dense bone and muscle he cut a pretty imposing figure. He wasn't one to fear assault, and few people would be bold or foolish enough to start a fight with him.

More importantly, Yatya lay directly on the path from his starting point to his destination. Going around it would be an inconvenience, and while he was not in a hurry, neither was Tzinte about to waste time on a needless detour. So he walked down Yatya in his traveling cloak, humming an aimless tune as he thought about the aim of his trip and the end to which he was coming. He grinned to himself, thinking of it, thinking of _her_.

Another person, so absorbed in pleasant thoughts of a lovely and lively darling, would lose track of what they were doing and become liable to misstep or walk into someone. But when a hooded figure ran across the path, unluckily timed such that they were sure to crash into him, Tzinte pivoted and sidestepped, moving easily out of the runner's way.

They stumbled and faltered, seemingly taken aback.

"Huh...?"

"Careful, friend," said Tzinte in his deep, resonant voice, pausing long enough to look at the halted figure. "You might hurt someone, running around like that."

For a moment, the hooded figure—a young man by his size and build—stared at Tzinte. His eyes were wide, and the whites stood out amid his shadowed face. Then his expression hardened, his jaw setting and teeth gritting.

A fist lashed out, and Tzinte caught an impression of glinting steel. He saw a knife clutched in a calloused hand, short but keen.

He seized the youth's wrist as easily as brushing a bit of sand from his sleeves, gripping it firmly but not too tightly. The knife stopped with the arrest of its wielder's hand, as suddenly as if it had slammed into a wall of air like solid rock.

Tzinte looked into the youth's eyes, and he saw determination melt away into fear.

"My, my. This was a poor decision on your part," he said, using a pleasant and conversational tone that was quite at contrast with their position. "In multiple senses. Why did you do it?"

The young man's fearful expression faded quite suddenly.

Tzinte ducked under the cudgel that was swung at his head from behind, and then he twisted to avoid a sword thrust. Not letting go of his first attacker's hand, he turned and saw five more young men moving to surround him, all of them armed and looking fairly unfriendly.

Tzinte couldn't help himself.

He laughed.

"What's so funny, old-timer?" demanded one of the meaner looking lads, gaunt and sallow. "This is a stick up!"

Tzinte shook his head.

"Sorry," he said. "I'm just marveling at the odds, I suppose. But you boys must be real hard to it, if you're pressed badly enough to risk tackling me here and now."

The apparent leader of the group, a particularly tall and forward fellow, brandished his sword. Probably he meant the gesture to be menacing.

"Don't give us lip, man. I'll chop you up if you mouth me, got it? I'll leave you bleeding in the gutter."

"No, but really," said Tzinte. "Who hired you? Your performance is a bit premature."

The leader blinked.

"I... what?"

"That woman probably thought it would be helpful to set up a scenario like this," Tzinte remarked half to himself. "When Lebe and I went on a stroll. But the timing and location are all quite off. Oughtn't you have waited, first of all, until you saw me with my date?"

"What do you think this is?" one of the other youths snapped.

"An arrangement for a scenario in which I would rescue my betrothed from the depredations of a gang of cutthroat vagabonds," Tzinte deadpanned. "That's the sort of thing Vera might put on, thinking it'll be a help. It's very old fashioned, though, and shoddily planned to boot. I admire your enthusiasm, but not much else."

The leader narrowed his eyes, and he pointed his sword at Tzinte's chest.

"Are you some kind of idiot?" he said. "This is a hold up, fool! We'll have your money, or we'll have your life."

Tzinte looked at the youths and frowned.

"Oh. That's a pity," he said. "You really _have_ made some very poor decisions."

He raised his hand and grabbed the blade of the leader's sword. The edge pressed to his skin, but it might as well have been the flat for all the effect it had. He flexed, and there was a light and a sound like the flicker of static electricity, before the sword sparked and shattered like sugar glass.

The leader sprang back in astonishment, now weaponless. His face went slack in horror, and the blood perceptibly drained from his cheeks.

He looked back up from the useless, glittering dust that remained of his sword to see his compatriots hit the ground in a swoon. Tzinte didn't appear to have moved an inch, and there wasn't a mark on the guys, but they were laid out flat all the same. He didn't doubt how it had happened.

"Please don't hurt me!" he squeaked, all courage fleeing him at the realization of just what sort of person he and his gang had attacked. "I'm so sorry, sir! We would never have done it, if we had known you were one of—"

"So you did it, instead, thinking I was just some big, muscular, defenseless traveler?" said Tzinte wryly. "Even if you had the advantage of surprise and numbers, this was a poor choice. Your strike was clumsily executed. A mere recruit could have thwarted it."

The gang leader's mouth open and closed, but no more sound came out. He was sweating, and he looked terribly fearful.

"F-Forgive us!" he said. "We never would have attacked you, lord, if we had known who you were!"

"You know what I am, maybe, by my _balenge_ ," said Tzinte. "But clearly not _who_ , or you wouldn't think I should pardon your act just because you would not attack _me_ if you knew or guessed my station. You are unrepentant rapscallions willing to waylay and rob your fellow countrymen."

He slipped a hand into his cloak, and fished around in an inner pocket.

The leader started to inch away, looking concernedly sidelong at his fellows and eyeing Tzinte with much apprehension. His fingers worked in nervous gesticulations, worrying and fidgeting as a bloodless face went taut. He appeared ready to bolt at a moment's notice.

_Clink!_

Almost the young man ran for it at the sudden stroke of Tzinte's great, dark hand, and he gave a frantic start at the blur of some object flying toward him. He only stopped himself after taking a step back, when he saw the thing come to a stop on the ground, at a spot that would have been at his feet had he not moved. He blinked once, owlishly.

A small bag, no more in size than a beggar's coinpurse, thudded on the roadside. It was a nicely made little thing, by all accounts, well-woven of fine yet sturdy fabric and modestly embroidered with a simple _svasti_ pattern. It was not an extravagant article, yet there was a fineness to it that belied something of its owner's background and standing. It bulged, more importantly, and clinked and jangled when it hit the ground: the sound and look of a coinpurse stuffed with coins.

"Take this," said Tzinte. "You and your friends; it should tide you over until you can find yourselves a more honest means of living. Treat it as a loan, if you want—if that salves what little pride you might still have as a man. You can pay back Tzinte Mbengo when you've all got yourselves real jobs."

The youth fell to his hands and knees, trembling, as he undid the tie on the coinpurse. Its contents, he saw, were shining silver _ba_ and glinting bronze _ven_. He looked up at Tzinte with wonder on his face, and he swallowed audibly.

"L-Lord..." he murmured. "Mbengo, you say...? You don't mean you are one of..."

"Ah?" said Tzinte distractedly, who had begun to walk away. "Not many families bear their own names, you know, and I should think the Mbengo are well enough known not to be mistaken for anyone else. Yes, I am one of _them_. No need to bow!" he added, seeing the man begin to lower his head. "We're not so special as that. Save your reverence for the house of the Sovereign, or the priest-line of Manwe. We're just a lot of soldiers—thugs by another name, you might say."

The youth stared at him, and he swallowed again.

"Of course, sir," he said, slowly and hesitantly rising. "But, what brings you through this unhappy place? Nobody of your station would dare sully themselves on these bloody streets."

"Don't speak worse of your home than it deserves," said Tzinte, not turning to look behind himself. "Yatya isn't so bad a place that a man can't walk in and come back out alive and whole. It's just a little rough, is all."

He did not answer the question that was put to him, though. The young man supposed it might have been discourteous to ask. But he looked at Tzinte's back as the man departed, and he saw that it was broad and straight.

Absently, a little stricken, he wondered when he himself had ceased to walk so proud and erect.

 

* * *

 

"You're a nuisance, sister..." muttered Aine to himself, scowling and rubbing his cheek where Lebera had pinched it only moments before, ere going off to look at the food prepared for their guest. His face was warm, and he could not expunge from his mind the memory of how Lebera had held him close to her chest.

He wondered when this had started, when he had first begun to feel this confused resentment toward his stepsister. A long time, it felt like. Years it had been, years since she went off on some impulse and got herself tangled up in affairs well beyond their reach, since he first began to think of her less as a sister than as a woman.

Long they had known each other, yet not so long. Not all their lives.

He was a man, was Aine, and such a man he was as might grow enflamed at the sight or touch of a handsome woman. Such a woman was his sister, not classically beautiful perhaps, not such a maiden as was idealized by their culture, but lovely in her own way still, shapely of face and well-formed in body, bright eyed and dark haired with rich, brown skin. It was not unreasonable, nor against the norms of society, for stepsiblings to feel this way. Aine did not feel guilty or ashamed of his own feelings, though he did not act on them, either.

He was not bold when it came to the opposite sex, and he was shy of intimacy beneath his bristling exterior. He feared his sister, in a way, more than he feared any nebulous imaginings of death or disaster. He feared her for the power she wielded over him as a woman—that terrible, twofold potency of the feminine gender. She drew him in with her manner and visage, her lively ways and pleasing looks, yet also she menaced him (knowingly or not) with the unspoken dread of rejection. Were he to speak of what he felt only for her to spurn him, or to laugh and treat it as a joke, then he would be stricken with such a wound as no sword stroke could deal.

Such fear was common to men, and specially crippling to those of more timid disposition. Aine didn't think himself a coward, but certainly he would not claim to match his sister's physical courage. To himself he justified his meekness as a greater awareness, a keener understanding of society and the people around him. He was an artistic soul, was Aine, thoughtful and inwardly emotional. Angst he reveled in with the lingering self pity of an adolescence only just left behind, and spiritual turmoil was but fuel to his labors.

But all of this aside, even were Aine fearless of rejection and uncaring what others might think, still he knew that it would be unkind of him to lay such a thing before Lebera now. It would be discourteous to make her consider him so late, even if only long enough to formulate her refusal, a needless discomfort and awkwardness to place on one whom he had loved, as he'd thought it then in the innocence of youth, as a sister.

It was unfair to Lebera for him to ruminate on these things. She was glad and filled with hopefulness for her future, hopes of both a fulfilling career and a happy marriage. With Tzinte, as she made it seem, she would have both. It was foolish of Aine, then, to mope about what couldn't be. As a man, was it not his role to endure this brief unhappiness and look to new hopes, to turn his mind from what would not be and seek that which in time still might?

And as a brother, step or otherwise, was it not his duty likewise to see that Lebera should be happy, that this should be a time of bliss for her regardless of his own selfish regrets? Was not a man, and was it not his to endure all discomfort and disappointment that might come of dealings with the fairer sex? He did not love Lebera just because she was beautiful to his eyes, nor was she only valuable to him as some possession, as a trinket or treasure to keep away from the sight of others. She was herself, an existence apart from him and worthy to be, even should he not.

At this time it was fairer to treat her as kin than as a woman. She was his sister, step or otherwise, and he was her brother. She owed him nothing save to live her life well, as all family owed itself. But he owed her more, as one who loved her dearly, even if he also resented her and quarreled often, for that was the way of siblings, whether they be siblings in blood or spirit. Better to be unhappy himself, whether briefly or for the rest of his life, than to discomfit one he loved.

Still, he would not let her be dishonored or taken advantage of. Lebera could protect herself well enough, but love could blind one to evil until it was much too late, and it was easier to raise one's hand against a stranger than to defend oneself, with violence, against a spouse or lover. No matter how well and fondly Lebera spoke of this Tzinte, Aine would not trust him, not at least until he had judged him for himself.

He did not wish to see his sister bound unwittingly to a fiend. Men and women alike became fools when love burned hot, and in the passions of youth it was easy to forgive or overlook those things that would, in the passing of years and cooling of long marriage, become a trial or torment. Better she groan and give him a dirty look in the present, than he see her grow wan and miserable years down the line, bound by vows and habit to a man who proved less worthy than the promise of love had in springtime made him seem.

It was with these such thoughts as this, these twined and tortuous motives, that Aine moved to the door when he heard it knocked upon, being nearest to it while the rest of his family was elsewhere or preoccupied. And it was with a less than charitable predisposition that he opened the door, expecting almost to see some obvious scoundrel or clearly corrupt noble.

Instead, he saw a great expanse of dark brown cloth, the fabric of a traveling cloak stretched over a very broad chest. He stared, taken aback at this, and looked up—

—up—

—up, and—

Oh.

Oh, _wow_.

Lebera had always said the man was tall, and Aine was rather less in height than his sister.

But still, there was something a little surreal about seeing the hooded head of this visitor scrape the top of the doorframe, or beholding shoulders as seemed nearly to span the doorway in their breadth. The cloak perhaps made him appear larger than he really was, its voluminous depths swallowing much of his frame and making him seem almost as vast and formless as a stormcloud.

But even as Aine looked, the man seemed to shrink, more in Aine's perception than in his actual size. As he adjusted to the sight of this figure, he was able to put him into perspective. This was a very tall and very solidly built man, yes, seven feet and change in height, and even within his cloak he had a body that promised itself to be heavily muscled and built around thick, solid bones. He was in every way a powerful, imposing figure. But he was well within human limits.

Still, in every way this man seemed equal to the reputation of his family, of the Mbengo clan from whom many of Amal's greatest captains and warriors had been sprung over the ages. As Lanteyo Laitenen the Tall, or Babar Narag, or Malorak the Mighty he seemed. Indeed, were Aine told that this was no less than Uduna the Great who had led the first allied army with valor and sacrifice to drive the hated Gorneg Umbinte and his lenge warriors over the north river, he would find it little stretch to believe. For a moment he stared in wonder, and then in trepidation.

But presently he steeled himself and called upon his resolve.

He needn't have bothered. The visitor was first to speak, pulling down his hood to reveal a chiseled, impressive face nearly dark as coal, a face that crinkled with a charming and personable grin. The man raised one broad hand in greeting, peaceable and unintimidating despite his great stature and clearly visible physical strength. His face had a bone structure that suggested hints of the Swazi, while his bodily size was textbook Umben. He didn't show much of the Amali save in his fingers, which were long and nimble.

Such mixing of traits was common among families in Amanta. Where many peoples cohabited, many kinds would inevitably mingle, and none of them were any worse for the change. Only the Tzeni outright avoided intermarrying with other races, and for them this was as much a concern about the... _mechanics_ , as it was anything else. Even then, it was not absolute.

"Hello, sir," said the man, looking down at Aine. "Is this the residence of Lebera and her family?"

Aine frowned, wary perhaps less of the man's size than of this forward friendliness that so contrasted with his formal manner speech.

"It could be," he answered evasively. "But that isn't an uncommon name. How do I know what Lebera you're looking for? And why are you looking for her?"

"A fair question, and smartly put! Yes, how shall you know indeed? " said the man. "Well, if you need to determine, I'll tell you that I seek Lebera daughter of Runa and Korwi, stepdaughter of Woodcarver Kala. If that is still not clear enough, then I'll say also that I seek a Lebera who is titled swordmaster of the army, great knight in the service of Princess Vera, and _Z'wemalor_ , the Wildfire.

"But my business with her is my own, and I'll not tell that so lightly to a stranger unnamed."

There was a pause. Aine hummed.

"You're Tzinte, then?" he said, looking doubtfully at the man's clothing. While it was of good quality, relatively speaking, it hardly seemed the finery that would be worn by so auspicious a son of so old and honored a family. At least, to Aine's expectations.

"I am," said the man. "Captain Tzinte Mbengo of the Royal Army, who is called great knight also, spearmaster and shield-bearer and herald of Barca the Magnificent, at your service—if that is who you mean by _Tzinte_."

Aine pursed his lips.

"You're Lebera's fiance, then." He peered over his shoulder, glancing back into the house. Then he looked at Tzinte, whose face was ruggedly handsome, and whose garb was decent but careworn, of goodly quality yet little apparent richness. He frowned, narrowing his eyes. "I thought you were supposed to be a noble, though."

"As I am," said Tzinte. "But does that matter? I am a man before I am a noble. If my station displeases you, then think of me only as one who loves Lebera dearly, and wishes to court her with all fairness and propriety."

Aine frowned further. Something of his expression caused Tzinte to cock his head.

"You don't look like a noble," Aine saidat length, squinting and crossing his arms over his chest. Next to Tzinte he looked very small and slender, but still he firmly stood his ground.

"Have you ever seen a noble before?" asked Tzinte, chuckling. "What did you expect me to look like?"

"Loftier than this," said Aine. "More... remote, at least. You seem very ordinary and vulgar, apart from your size."

"I am not a refined gentleman?" said Tzinte. "Or not like you think one ought to be. But just because my dress is not so fine, and my bearing not so delicate, that doesn't mean I'm not a man of standing and authority."

"Oh, I don't doubt that. And that's our problem."

"A problem? How so?"

Aine's eyes flashed.

" _I don't trust you_."

Tzinte inclined his head at this, and he looked thoughtfully at Aine. He hummed softly, deep in his throat, a low and rumbling sound. He stroked a strong, defined chin, his jaw square and resolute. Deep eyes shone with a knowing light.

"Do you think I mean to take advantage of Lebera?" he asked at length. "You underestimate her, if you think she would abide such a thing."

"She is... fond of you," said Aine. "And that fondness might blind her to any warning of unsavory qualities."

"You are very mistrustful, young master. Do you treat all dear friends of your sister like this, Aine?"

Aine gave a slight start at this. Then he shook his head.

" _Not a hard thing to guess, I suppose_..." he murmured, speaking more to himself than the guest on the doorstep. Louder, he said: "No. Not to all of them. Only to men, and then only to those who are interested in her. Strong she might be, but she is still a woman, and you seem to be a man of no little strength yourself."

"No little strength, but very little character—or so you seem to think," said Tzinte.

"Don't take it the wrong way," Aine told him. "It's not about you, personally. I'd treat the same with any man who pursued my sister."

"At least you're fair, in your own way," said Tzinte wryly. "But come, now! Let's not wait forever on the step. May I not come in? Are you the master of this house, to deny me entry so?"

"Not the master," said Aine. "And even if I were, I wouldn't throw my own mistrust in the face of _xenia_. But we can wait a little longer."

"What for?" wondered Tzinte. "Surely we've said all there is to say on this topic."

"Not quite," Aine replied. "I just want to be clear and frank. I don't like you. I don't trust you."

"So much for it not being personal..." remarked Tzinte, chortling quietly to himself. "But despite this, I think I rather like you, Aine. You resemble your sister in temper as much as in face."

Aine twitched.

"Don't make fun," he said a hair sullenly. "I can't resemble her very much. We're only step siblings."

"Well, not in the finer details," Tzinte conceded. "But there is much the same air about you. You both have a subtle, feminine beauty underneath your bristling exteriors."

If a look could kill, Aine's glare would have slain Tzinte at once. As it was, he veritably seethed at this remark. Clearly it was something that irked him, striking perhaps too close to a tender nerve. The statement was not untrue, at least in any general sense, and Aine really wasn't outwardly very masculine in build or visage. It was a neotenous sort of boyish handsomeness that he had, something which made him very popular among certain circles of his society, yet galled his pride.

"The more you speak, the less I like you," Aine grumbled. "Don't compare me with Lebera. I'm a man."

"But there are very few men whom I think would come out unfavorably by such a comparison," said Tzinte fairly. "And none by so great a measure as to make it meaningfully offensive."

"Yet I take offense, all the same."

"You are too thin-skinned, I suppose."

"Or you're too insensitive. But look here!" Aine said, leaning in close and glowering darkly up at Tzinte. "My sister likes you. Maybe she even really loves you. But I swear on all that is holy, by Emen, and the iron temple, and the tower of shining gold! If you do anything— _anything at all_ —to hurt my sister, then nothing—not all the miles between east and west, not the depth of the seas or the heights of heaven, nor every damned _lenge_ in Sangera Angrea—will keep me from exacting justice, not should you be Wodaz returned or the next high prophet, or Gorneg Umbinte or Lanigav the Loathsome. Do you understand? I will _kill you_ if you hurt her."

Tzinte smiled at Aine, his eyes twinkling merrily.

"You're quite the poet," he said. "But you really love your sister, don't you?"

For a moment, Aine went silent. He looked at Tzinte with a strange, distant expression. Tzinte didn't know what that was about. To him it was an honest, innocent remark, an observation provoked by Aine's clearly protective nature in regards to his step-sister.

But for Aine this comment struck far too close to home, nearer than any other guess or jibe Tzinte could ever have made, and it pained him sorely. He winced as if struck by a physical blow, and his entire demeanor seemed to change. Were his cheeks a shade or two fairer, one could easily have made out the bright flush therein.

Aine spluttered and averted his gaze, looking very obviously flustered.

"What...? No, of course not! I don't—not _love_ —it's just— _she's_ just—"

Tzinte cocked his head at this. There was a hint of understanding that came into his eyes, now, and he smiled sympathetically.

"I see," he said. "Well, I can hardly begrudge your resentment if that's the case. Were our positions reversed, I don't think I could be even this civil." He put a hand on Aine's shoulder and grinned cheekily. "And if she ever wants to experiment, perhaps I'll suggest inviting you?"

Aine went stiff. His face burned red hot, and he looked at Tzinte in a mixture of disbelief and something else that was unreadable.

"You're a bastard," he said.

"So I've been told," remarked Tzinte cheerfully. "But come! We've kept your family waiting long enough."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On the plus sides of this chapter: I like the name "Yatya" for a rough part of Amanta. It has a vaguely Russian or Eastern European feel to it, and it just sounds like the name of a place you wouldn't want to go unarmed. With that said, I feel like the first scene is pretty gratuitous and mediocre at several points, and if it gets included in any sort of final draft it will need serious refining. 
> 
> As far as the second scene, I'm also dubious about Aine's inner monologue. While it leads into his encounter with Tzinte (which I think was okay, though it also can benefit from much improvement), I'm iffy about so explicitly stating that Aine has feelings for Lebera, or about giving such a melodramatic bit to a character who will likely play very little role in the overall story. 
> 
> But maybe people will enjoy reading this, who knows? I've always been especially critical of my own work.
> 
> TTFN and R&R!  
> – — ❤


	3. Chapter 3

The household of Runa Nakiyo and Kala Nadjao was a modest thing. As with most tradesmen of Byohamba, their home was one with their place of work, the streetward half of the first level occupied by the shop. The second level of the house had their rooms and living quarters, while the den and kitchen were located behind the shop. A low, cobblestone wall ran around the property, part of a greater civil boundary that delineated the separate realms of each homestead on this block of Uchatya.

A small path of smoothworn stones ambled up along the side of the house, a lantern overhanging the gateless portal that led thither. This was the way one would take to reach the residential entry of the dwelling, past the half open storefront that was closed off in the evening with wooden shutters, unlit and silent.

Just before the path veered toward the home door, one would glimpse the backyard. It was a small thing, compared to what one would see out in the country, or in the better off sectors of Kengamba and Turumba. It was not for leisure, this yard, and most of its visible surface was well-trodden dirt. The rest was occupied by a woodshed, a coarsely tiled roof held aloft by four square pillars which were themselves locked into place by slim cross-braces. Three faces of the shed were overlaid with wooden boards to keep out the elements, and the front was open.

The house itself was nothing special. Its construction was in a fairly modern Amalite style, more wood than clay or brick, rising up two stories from a cobblestone foundation. The storefront, open in half its streetward side to let in sun and customers during the day, looked rather like a mouth. The other half had small windows of mason glass that let through light but little sight. The second story was of wooden planks and beams, with taller but slenderer windows covered by slatted shutters.

In the den where Aine led Tzinte was the sitting room where the family members would relax in those hours of peace between a day's hard work and a night's good rest, reading or chatting or playing with the dog. It was a cozy room with a stone hearth and a woven rug, a coffee table round which people could sit and drink, and well-made chairs of wood. The master of the house sat with his wife, and the grandmother read in her chair.

Lebera was gesturing idly toward the logs in the fireplace, and the wood seemed to kindle and flare wherever she pointed. The flames leaped and twisted in tongues of red and yellow, forming hypnotic shapes as they wrapped and writhed about slowly blackening wood, digging into the fiber and peeling it away little by little. Sparks of orange sprang up into the air when the stumped branch of one log broke away from its main body, shriveled and dessicated by the ravening fire, and fell with a soft thump into the white, red-glowing coals.

Her dress was blue, and it was of a good cut and fabric. The light dancing across her face enhanced the small grin she wore, and the flames glittered, reflected deep in her eyes. The neck of her dress was not very low, coming to rest just an inch below her collarbone, but her limber and sinuous arms were quite visible, bare of sleeves, soft to look at but as strong and flexible as boughs of green willow. She had muscle like whipcord, subtle yet firm, and her face was good-natured and comely.

She looked especially nice and striking in this fine garb, if a little uncomfortable to be so gussied up. Yet her hands moved fluidly, and she hummed an tuneless melody to herself, twirling the tip of a finger and watching a tongue of flame curl and coil before it faded. Her _balenge_ , her white magic, she exercised with a leisurely care, commanding the fire to dance in time with her thought and will. Her smile was quite pleasant, and Tzinte and Aine both smiled to see it despite all that had just passed between them.

"Hey," she said, cocking her head and looking over her shoulder at the two men. "Nice to see you, love. But what kept you two, Aine? You were at the door an awful long while."

"Nothing," Aine said. "We were just having a—a discussion."

"Oh, God. Don't tell me you were trying to scare him off!" Lebera snorted back a laugh and pointed at the heart of the fire, which flared momentarily blue, leaping on high within the fireplace and charring a goodly portion of the yet unburned wood, before dropping back down to a safe heat and height. "You're a head shorter than me, and you think you can intimidate that big lug? Please, brother, don't _embarrass_ yourself."

Aine looked both nervous and abashed, and he glanced anxiously where Lebera had caused the fire to blaze. Even as he watched, some of the blackness receded from the logs, and they grew somewhat less cracked and ruined, becoming a little more whole than they had been for a while. Another act of Lebera's balenge, restoring the wood so it wouldn't be spent too soon. She did such things so casually these days, almost as if without any particular care or thought.

Tzinte smiled suavely, and not missing a beat he said, "We were just exchanging greetings. It was nothing untoward, I assure you."

"R-Right, of course," said Aine a little too quickly. "What do you take me for, sister?"

Lebera snorted, a rather unladylike gesture, but very much within her nature.

"A belligerent and mistrustful little troll," said she, rolling her eyes. "But if you really insist, then I'll take your word for it that you two weren't having some stupid macho stand off."

"Of course. There was nothing of the sort."

Lebera smiled despite herself, and she stood from the chair before the fire. Aine averted his eyes with a sheepish expression, but Tzinte looked warmly and lovingly at her.

"Hello," said Runa, interjecting from where he and Kala sat. "You're Tzinte, then? It's a pleasure to meet you."

"The pleasure is all mine," said Tzinte politely, turning and bowing in greeting. "Thank you for having me, sir."

"You're a very courteous young man," remarked Gran Yui from her seat. "Keep a firm hold on this one, Lebera! It'd be a shame to let him go."

Lebera laughed and covered her face, feeling it briefly warm.

Runa rose from his seat, and Kala followed him. Runa, being a man of reasonably significant size himself, if more in girth than in height, had to crane his head less than Kala to look Tzinte in the eye. He held out the hand of a carpenter, broad and skillful and calloused, and Tzinte took it and shook. Runa looked searchingly into Tzinte's eyes, and held his hand with the kind of firm, unbreakable grip that could only be forged by a lifetime of manual labor.

Lebera watched the greetings with a touch of bemusement, holding her arms at her sides and standing awkwardly as she waited for them to be done. Her dad and boyfriend shook for a rather long time, or so it felt, and it seemed to her almost that they were having a contest of strength. She felt a twinge of impatience before her dad finally released Tzinte's hand, nodding to himself and humming with a quiet satisfaction.

"You're a man of character, boy," said Runa, smiling. "I can tell."

 _Can you, really?_ thought Lebera. _All you did was shake hands. Not that you aren't right, of course, but still..._

She shook her head inwardly, and silently sighing she watched her mom step forward and greet Tzinte next. Kala gestured pleasantly and smiled very prettily at her stepdaughter's lover, giggling when he stooped to kiss the back of her hand and greeting him with sweet, girlish pleasantries. Lebera felt herself grow warm at this, but she restrained the petty irritation.

"How charming," said Kala, smiling at Tzinte. "But you shouldn't entice a married woman so. And the mother of your love, too!"

"Of course not," said Tzinte, nodding amicably. "I'd never _dream_ of it."

"Right, right," said Lebera dryly, speaking up. "Not when he has a lovely young woman already to himself."

"Not to myself, I'd say," Tzinte quipped offhandedly. "You've more than a few admirers."

"Is she popular, then, that daughter of ours?" asked Kala pleasantly, smiling. "I wouldn't have thought she'd get much attention, with that temper of hers. At least, not the kind of attention a young woman might want."

"She got my attention, didn't she?" said Tzinte. "Clearly there is something special about her."

Lebera snorted. "That sounds very haughty of you," she remarked.

"Does it? Perhaps a little," Tzinte admitted, not looking very sheepish.

"Oh, come over, you bigheaded oaf!" Lebera cried. "You haven't even said hello to me, yet."

"Haven't I?" said Tzinte humorously. "Hello, then."

Lebera rolled her eyes, but she was smiling.

Tzinte then turned and greeted her grandmother last, kissing the elderly woman's hand much as he had Kala's, and saying besides that she looked the very flower of youth. Lebera couldn't help chuckling at how thickly he laid the flattery with all his courtly speech and friendly manner. Dangerously charming he was indeed—at least to old ladies.

Yui smiled at Tzinte and nodded to his words, taking back her hand and reproaching him in good humor not to leave his lover untended.

"A husband should put his homely wife before even the loveliest stranger," she said, quoting what was quite possibly an aphorism she had manufactured herself. She was fond of making up such saws and sayings.

"But a man should greet well the kin of the one he courts," said Tzinte, responding aptly.

Lebera saw her grandmother's eyes glitter with both amusement and pleasure. She watched Tzinte step back and nod, before he finally turned once more to her.

"You won't kiss Aine's hand, too?" she said dryly.

"Not unless he wants me to," said Tzinte.

Aine responded with a rather uncharitable look, and he likely would have gestured most impolitely were their parents not in the room with them.

Lebera was unbothered, and she stepped forward to pull Tzinte into a hug. Even standing as high as she did, right around six and a half foot and taller even than her father, her head barely reached Tzinte's collar. Her arms she slung around his waist (taking care not to drop her hands too low) and her cheek she pressed against his chest. It was firm, broad, and warm. Very cozy.

She held Tzinte with a deceptively tight gripping strength, her arms firm and unyielding once they'd locked around his body. Her eyes gleamed, and she feasted them on his smiling face, handsome as it was. She was pleased to hold him, and to feel his arms wrap courteously around her. He was even more careful than she was not to touch anywhere inappropriate, so long as the others watched.

"Now _this_ is a proper greeting," Lebera said, absorbing the warmth of Tzinte's body like she was a lizard basking on a sunny rock. Craning her head and standing on tiptoe, she lifted herself up and planted a kiss on his cheek as quick as a wink.

He bowed his head and stooped to retaliate, when she rested once more with her soles on the floor, and his face pressed close before hers, tilting as he angled himself just so to snatch a sweet kiss from her lips. It was a brief and chaste kiss, but there was a passion behind it that could not be disguised, each of them feeling fairly fond toward the other, as mutually possessive as any pair of happy young lovers might be.

"Hello, Lebera," said Tzinte, still firmly snared in her arms. "It is nice to see you again."

"We haven't been apart that long," she said. "Only a day or two."

"I'm not the one holding the other like she's ready to wrestle him to the floor."

"What can I say? I'm clingy," Lebera joked. But she let go of him nonetheless, grinning, and they stepped apart. After a moment's contented silence, she said, "Well, how hungry are you? We could eat now, if you want."

"I can wait a little," said Tzinte politely. "But what about you? If you mean to eat now, I'll eat with you."

"I can wait, too," said Lebera stoutly, though her stomach grew peevish at these words. "But if the _others_ are hungry—"

"Oh, come now!" Runa laughed. "We've prepared this nice dinner for our guest, and it's waited only for his arrival. We oughtn't let the food go cold." He patted a rounded belly, grinning at the two young lovers. To his wife, he said, "Right, dear? We worked hard on that meal."

" _We?_ " said Kala, smirking and quirking an eyebrow. "All you did was fetch the dough."

"Details, details!" Runa chortled, waving a hand dismissively. "This is about our guest, not me."

Tzinte smiled and bowed courteously.

"If my hosts insist, I will not protest eating now," he said. "I have heard high praise of your table, from your daughter. I would be glad to try it for myself."

"Well, come then," said Kala, gesturing. "The table's in the kitchen."

* * *

Lebera walked alongside Tzinte, and she took a seat beside him. The kitchen was located right adjacent to the den, with only a short hall to separate them. It was not a large kitchen by any measure, save perhaps of a small camp or woodman's cot, but it had all the basic amenities to be expected in the capital city of Amal. There was an oven by the wall, and cupboards for dry food, and a sink for water and washing.

The table was stoutly built, a solid bit of furniture adorned with a plain tablecloth. Its surface was laden with a modest array of food stuffs, sliced apples and roasted turkey and freshly baked rolls of bread, as well as a salad of green things, lettuce and spinach and cabbage, and peas and boiled carrots and sweet potatoes. A gravy boat was set amidst the various dishes, and a small plate of butter rested beside that.

Lebera felt her stomach twitch and gurgle as the smell of the food filled her nostrils. It had been a while since she'd seen such a fine home-cooked meal. This was a veritable feast, and she felt her anticipation wax as she drew up her plate. An oil lamp flickered, casting its light over them, and a steam of mingled fragrances rose from the table in a shimmer. Her mom took a seat beside her dad, and her brother helped their grandma into a seat before sitting down himself.

Then they clasped their hands, looking at the food.

"Why don't you give thanks, Lebera?" Kala suggested.

Lebera nodded and bowed her head. The others closed their eyes.

" _Thank you for this bounty of hunt and harvest, O king of heaven and earth. Thank for this life and gladness, O lord of all the world and ages. Thank you for kinship and friendship and love with our fellow man, O Emen to whom we pray. Bless this meal, and those who partake in it, and those who cannot share in this bread. As it is said, so let it be._ "

Then, finishing the prayer, Lebera unclasped her hands and looked up. She saw the smiling faces of her family as they too ceased their prayer.

Feeling a redoubled anticipation for the food in her soul and belly, Lebera reached out for the plate of turkey, and she portioned slices of the poultry onto Tzinte's plate, then her grandmother's, and then her own. Following that she passed the plate to Tzinte, who passed it to Aine, who passed it to Runa, their father, who portioned it out to Kala, Aine, and himself.

While they did not observe the intricate courtesies of a noble's board, Lebera and her family had the manners of any decent Amalites. The most basic rule of any table in sensible countries was for the guests to be first served, simple hospitality a thing too sacred for any but the most churlish to violate. Beyond that the politic of dining grew more complex, and varied from region to region—even from house to house. But in the home of Nadjao and Nakiyo, at least, turns were taken on who would pass out the food during a meal of this sort.

Lebera had the first responsibility, being a child of the house returned in visit from career, and being also the particular host of their guest, Tzinte. After her went Runa, being the patriarch of the household and traditional breadwinner, handing out food to his wife and son before to himself, a symbolic gesture of the father's role in a household, to provide by the sweat of his brow and putting his family before himself. Next did Kala portion out food, passing peas, carrots, and potatoes across the table to Tzinte, then to her mother and her husband, then on to her son and daughter.

After her went Aine, who passed around the bread, then Gran Yui who distributed the salad. Only Tzinte was spared the task of distributing food to the others, because while the order and responsibility would for all other members of the table change with the occasion, and with age, and even with the nature of the meal, guests were not asked or told to help in such a way. And Tzinte was polite enough not to intrude his offers of assistance, understanding that this was a basic ritual as important as conversation to enforcing the bonds and shared reliance of kin. But he did give thanks with every portion handed to him, and he waited patiently for everyone else to have their plates laden and ready before he himself began to eat.

But eat they did, and they savored the food, and they indulged each other in the conversation of a dinner together, chatting and politely questioning. It was an exchange of courtesies, but also of information, to learn what each of them had done with their day and establish an infinitesimally deeper understanding of one another. While it was not possible, perhaps, to know another person completely, one could certainly still learn much of another's habits, opinions, and temperament.

"How fares your business, Nakiyo?" Tzinte asked, using Runa's occupational epithet of _Carpenter_. "Your shop looks very fine, from what I saw."

"I can't believe that!" said Runa, shaking his head. "It's but a modest work we do here, and even just here in Uchatya there are woodworkers more skilled. We get by, though. It's never very busy, but we have jobs enough to win our salt."

"Lebera is a great help," said Gran Yui, nodding. "Sending us so much money each week. She's a good, dutiful child."

"My stipend is more than generous," said Lebera modestly, as if to downplay what she did to help support her family. "It's nothing much, really."

"Soldiering must pay very well, then," said Aine, eyeing his sister askance.

"She _is_ rather highly placed, isn't she? But tell us, Lord Tzinte. What's it like serving in the royal army?" said Kala, speaking up and smiling at the young nobleman between bites of turkey.

"Don't call me _lord_ ," Tzinte said reflexively. "And hasn't Lebera regaled you with tales of her own service?" he asked in turn, smiling wryly. "But I do not know how I should describe it. A man's career is his career, I suppose you could say. It is a job, and a responsibility and an honor—but that doesn't mean it is never trying or onerous. Quite the contrary. But I won't trouble your ears with details. Not while we eat, at least."

"Right," said Lebera pensively, swallowing a mouthful of sweet potato. "It's not much different, what he does. Not much different from what I do, that is. _Aminte Umada_ , _U'ente Nturu_ : elite knight and captain of the army. They're actually pretty similar."

"If you say so," said Kala a touch dubiously.

"I still marvel to think about it," said Granny, "that our Lebera was able to find her way among the most honored defenders of this country. Do you remember when Lord Arukh came here with that dirty little girl in tow, looking so grim and severe when he told us how she had assaulted two of his senior students?"

"Oh, _God_ ," muttered Lebera, covering her face. "Don't remind me."

"Yes, I remember," said Runa. "I was sure we were going to be in so much trouble. We'd let our little girl run about, and off she went and battered a pair of precious pupils from the Migilosa Martial College... oh, I was sure we were to catch hell for that!"

He laughed.

"But instead," said Granny, smiling nostalgically, "he tells us that he's decided to accept rambunctious little Lebera as one of his students, since she was so determined to prove her qualification. A greater reward for misbehaviour I've never seen! Lord Arukh was a very generous man, but I wonder sometimes if it wouldn't have been better to skin the girl's bottom and learn her some manners."

She said this with no small hint of cheek, and she smiled at her granddaughter, whose face was burning hot.

"Oh, he took it out of me, alright," said Lebera, trying to swallow her embarrassment at this reminder of past misconduct, however impressive a feat it might have been to ambush and defeat two near-graduate students of the country's foremost school of war. "They worked me like an ass, you know, and I'm sure I wished a hundred times that I'd kept away from the field of my betters before I was even accepted as a proper initiate. It's not a gentle or easy career path, studying the arts of battle under one such as Master Ben Arukh, and I saw people twice my size break down in tears before the end."

"You had more spirit than the biggest of them, though," said Tzinte, chiming in. "And you were a fighter from the first."

"A troublemaker, more like it," said Aine dryly.

Lebera laughed humorlessly.

"Too true. Goodness, but I was a dreadful child. I'm glad I've mellowed out since then."

" _Mellowed?_ " said Aine, recalling her teasing and horseplay.

"Comparatively," said Tzinte, answering before Lebera. "You can't get through Migilosa without learning to control yourself. At least, not if you wish to be anything other than cannon fodder, and that would be an unconscionable waste of time and talent."

He snapped his fingers, causing a spark like the bolt of static electrity to shimmy up the tines of his fork. Lebera rolled her eyes at this, a tasteless display in the middle of eating, but Aine looked much impressed.

"Is that your magic?" he said, looking at Aine's fork. "Lebera plays with fire, I know that, but hers is the only magic I've seen up close."

Lebera wrinkled her nose.

"That's a dirty word," she said reprovingly. "It's ruined by all association with those north of the river. Balenge is better and more accurate. Or what the dwarves call it, failing that: _deiwos_."

"The only difference is _ba_ ," snorted Aine. "All that separates lenge from balenge is a pig and a silver dollar."

It was a feeble joke, and an old one. Lebera scoffed, while Runa chuckled at his stepson's remark. Granny and Tzinte smiled. Only Kala seemed to share Lebera's distaste for this jest.

"Don't joke about that, Aine dear," Kala said warningly. "Or the _lenge_ will come eat you in your sleep."

"They can try," said Aine. "But they'd have a time getting here, wouldn't they? It won't happen so long as someone like my dear sister stands us and them."

Lebera smiled at this in spite of herself.

"Don't try to appease me with flattery," she said, but she was unable to completely hide the pleasure in her tone.

"But whatever you call it, it is what it is," said Tzinte, peaceably interjecting. He pressed his fork into a slice of turkey, and it perceptibly warmed, then cooled, then returned to its normal temperature. He shifted his fork sideways, and the meat was cut as easily as if he'd been using a knife.

Aine watched raptly, fascinated by these little displays. Lebera looked unimpressed, and she eyed her brother askance.

"What's so impressive about this, Aine?" she said. "You've seen me use balenge enough times not to marvel at such a small thing."

"Yours is different," he said dismissively. "You use fire."

"So it's a matter of novelty only?" Lebera snorted. "Hmph. You're still just a child."

She took another bite of her food, though, and did not continue. Nor did Aine rise to her bait.

For a while, they all ate and talked about small matters, the kind of things one would expect to be discussed when a young woman brings home her boyfriend. Lebera contributed her fair share to the conversation, and Tzinte proved himself a very well-spoken and courteous fellow. Runa shared a variety of humorous anecdotes, and Kala discussed recent happenings, and Gran Yui told a story or two from her youth.

Apart from the expected slight awkwardness where a new party is introduced into a tight-knit web of personalities, testing the waters and seeing how they all now stood in relation to this newcomer, Lebera's dinner with her family went much the same as any other. The food was a bit finer and more plentiful than usual, the table set as it would be only on special occasions, and the dining and chat went on longer, but it was nothing fundamentally different from any other dinner she'd shared with her family.

Still, she felt conscious that she herself was not so much a member of this house as she used to be. In her work she more often camped in the wild or roomed in the barracks of distant forts, and even when she was here in Amanta, nowadays she often stayed rather at one of the military dorms scattered throughout the city. The happenings of Uchatya, which once would have been as familiar to her as the changing of the weather, now seemed quaint, remote, and foreign. She recognized fewer of the names mentioned than she once might have, and she found it harder to visualize the events.

Her perspective was no longer entirely the same as her family's. Even when among them she felt somehow _apart_ , removed in her experience and her philosophy from the plain sense and practicality of Corn Row carpenters. She found herself thinking in a martial sense, judging people first as threats and feeling sometimes ill at ease without a weapon in arm's length. She felt harder than her family, and less kindly in some way.

But that was to be expected when you made your living fighting monsters and worse on the marches of civilization, when you were a holy knight in service to the sovereign of a great realm.

"Has Vera told you where we'll be going next?" she asked Tzinte in an undertone as her father waxed louder in his story about farmer Moteyo and his run-in with a particularly aggressive porcupine. "Or when?"

"She has not," said Tzinte, similarly quietly. "But then she has many cares aside from us, even if we are her sworn knights. I am certain she will give consideration to the matter in her own time, and with her own judgement."

"Her judgement is good," said Lebera reasonably. "I do wish she wasn't quite so obstinate, though."

"Obstinate?" said Tzinte. "You say this, yet you are one whose advice she values very highly."

"God only knows why," Lebera muttered. "But I feel like she's been getting restless, lately. Have you noticed that?"

"No, I haven't. But she's always been a bit restive, beneath her exterior. She's ambitious, and not the most patient when things aren't going all her way."

"Maybe. She seems tenser, though. Grimmer. Like she's been working herself up for some real unpleasant job."

"I can believe that," murmured Tzinte. "She's talked a lot about some very high matters, lately. Almost I'd think she meant to follow the example of her grandfather."

"That'd be splendid, if it were true," Lebera sighed.

"Would it?" said Tzinte, looking dubious. He glanced sidelong at the others. They were still absorbed in Runa's description of burly Moteyo fleeing, with musket in hand, from a fat, grumpy, waddling porcupine.

"It would mean taking action," said Lebera. "Not just policing our borders, but actually _retaliating_ against those devils."

"What would that accomplish?" muttered Tzinte. "King Veng was a bold man, they say, but also rash and imprudent. Not many think well of what he did."

"Vera's not like him, then," Lebera said loyally. "Not entirely. I've never seen her make a bad or hasty decision, you know. So if she thought we could achieve something..."

There was a pause.

"This isn't the place for such a discussion," whispered Tzinte, as Runa's tale wound to its end. "We'll continue it later, maybe."

Despite his words, Lebera got the distinct impression that they would not.

At least, not for a long while.

 


	4. Chapter 4

_Tink. Tink. Tink._

Coals were burning in a stone trough, a deeply glowing ruddy orange. Material sloughed a little at a time from the smoldering rocks, hair-slight threads and flakes of carbon peeling away from the main clumps in nearly invisible specks, white and shriveled, combusted slowly into nothing. Some particles rose with a continuous updraft of hot air from the forge, small white motes that fell here and there about the room.

It was a small, private chamber of the sort as was usually assigned to journeyman smiths, with all the basic amenities for honing one's craft. There were six walls, the room hexagonal in shape. Against one wall rested a rack of half-forged instruments, tools and weapons at varying degrees of quality and finish. At the opposite wall were sturdy rock shelves and a stepladder beside, these fixtures monolithic and carved rather than built. On the shelves were various things, nails and bands and handles and other parts, and metal ingots alongside the usual crates of fuel, plus flux and coke for the smelting of steel.

In the center of the room or near enough was set the open forge with bellows, a hellhound's manger of burning lignite with sturdy anvil and water barrel adjacent. Over the anvil was bent a short and stocky figure, rugged and black bearded with a soot-darkened face. Deeply set eyes glinted in the red light of the forge, and broad, short-fingered hands worked with surprising deftness at the use of hammer and tongs.

He was short by human standards, being nary an inch over four feet high, but his build was stout with muscular arms and a wide, rounded belly. Only somewhat shy of being as wide as he was tall, and with so craggy a face and such a full beard, there could be no mistaking him for anything but a _dwarf_. Most likely a low dwarf, for no son of the Deep Ones would content himself with facilities this humble.

_Tink. Tink. Tink._

A small hammer was gripped in a heavily gloved hand, the head of it no bigger than a baby's nose. It tapped gently but steadily on the red hot metal, slowly and carefully nudging the quarter-molten iron into the shape its master desired. Already the glowing brand had a distinct blade shape, short but straight. In the middle it was thickest, while at the edges the dwarf was slowly thinning it.

Intent upon the glowing metal he worked, laying it back it the coals when it started to cool and harden, and gradually fashioning it into the shape his mind saw. It was a dull labor, slow and repetitive, but from this monotonous work came a sense of calm and focus. He was absorbed in the metal, his entire thought bent on it, watching as the blade took shape, his tools kneading it into a clear knife edge.

The air was hot, and his skin was ruddy beneath the blackening of ash and soot. A bald, ruddy crown shone with sweat, but dark eyes gleamed with an inner fire. In this chamber was no device for the telling of time, nor calendar, nor anything to divert its occupant's thoughts from his labors. Smoke rising from the forge became a cloud beneath a slat in the stone ceiling, whence it vanished to join the many vents leading out from under the earth.

Gerald Haraldsen worked steadily on his commission, shaping the blade of a good hunting knife from bright iron, the dwarven spectral steel that was famed for such work. Notches like an impression of ribs lined a portion of the half-forged blade's back length, and the tip was scooped with a convex angle that rose to a keen point at the longer, cutting edge. Even as Gerald looked on his handywork he nodded to himself, satisfied with his completion of this phase of the smithing.

He gripped the handle of the tongs firmly enough to hold the stiffening, darkening blade fast. Lifting it from the anvil, he plunged it into the water, and a great rush of steam followed. He closed his eyes against the eruption of vapor, feeling it scald his face (as much as anything could be said to scald a dwarf). It was hot, but the rush of steam soon lessened, then stopped, and he saw the blade go black and cool in the murky water.

He then rested the cooled steel back on the anvil, surveying it critically. Its overall shape was as he desired, but there was still work to do on it: runes to etch, and a handle to install, and the steel itself needed polishing and treatment and a proper finish still before it would have the dazzling, light-splintering sheen for which this alloy was so esteemed.

Gerald, who was an assiduous member of the dwarven race even by the measure of his fellow Lavdverg, was about to set this blade aside and begin on the next bit of forging when the door to his smithy swung noiselessly open. It moved on silent hinges that welded wood to rock, and heavy boots came tentatively over the threshold. He did not need to look up to know who the visitor was.

"Hedald," he grunted, welcoming his youngest brother.

"Hey, Gerald," said Hedald, nodding to his eldest brother. "You, uh, have any work for me?"

Gerald looked up from where he was setting the knife blade on the shelf, among other incomplete parts. Gruffly, he replied.

"Have you made the hilt I asked for?"

"I have," said Hedald, and his expression was peevish. "I put it on the shelf."

"I haven't seen it," said Gerald as he produced a forging mold and an iron ingot. "Did you tag it? I've told you I can't be expected to identify every odd and end by sight."

"I did, but the tag might have come off. It's been a day or two, and I don't doubt you've rifled through those parts more than once."

"Perhaps I have," Gerald said lightly, and he went to the shelf where such components were usually laid. "But if that's so, then you must not have fixed the tag on very well."

"Do you really need them tagged, though?" Hedald said. "It seems you should be able to tell what goes where just by the fashion and design of each part. My work isn't so dull or uniform as for one piece to get mixed up with another."

Gerald pursed his lips and gave Hedald a stern look. His brother was a couple inches taller and a little less portly, and his hair was only starting to recede. But his beard was shorter and less rich, and his face no fresher despite his comparative youth. The light in his eyes was less disciplined, too quick to flame up and die back down, and his expression was much too childish for a full grown dwarf of trade and craft.

If Hedald had only one fault, it was that he lacked a certain firmness of mind, and was too easily lost in fancy or whim. He had good hands and perfectly respectable abilities—in fact, as far as pure skill in smithy he was Gerald's superior. He was very clever in his own manner, and in some areas his knowledge was as deep as it was eclectic. But he rarely committed himself to work outside his immediate interests, and indeed he could be downright churlish when forced to condescend to simple tasks.

Because of this, he was still reckoned an apprentice, and also because of his habit to start up overambitious projects that never got past the first stage, and also the carefree way in which he approached his work. Half of the time he'd just grab materials and start shaping with no idea of what the end product would be. Sometimes this produced ingenious works entirely worth the trouble of his mercurial temper, masterpieces of craft well beyond the usual output of _lavdverg_ like themselves. But many other times it was just a waste, and ended in a half-finished clutter of odds and ends.

Gerald would not call his brother a genius, if only because his results were too variable in quality. Hedald had the conceit and temper of one, certainly, and sometimes seemed to fancy himself so gifted, but he worked slowly and often aimlessly, and half his products were barely mediocre. For this inconsistency, as well as for his bullheaded attitude, he had a less than admirable reputation among the smiths of Timberdelf.

But Gerald suffered these things for the sake of their kinship, and while Hedald could be trying at times, Gerald bore him no ill will. What Hedald did well he did _very_ well, and from such works Gerald profited enough to compensate his pride and patience for enduring his brother's less desirable qualities. So with a heatless sniff he turned back to the shelf and shifted through it.

It did not take him long to find what he sought—a knife handle carved from horn, clearly intended for the blade he had forged. With a critical eye he examined the handle. The grip was good, grooved and shaped according to specification for the longer and slenderer fingers of humans. The slot into which the blade's base would be fixed was also the right size and shape. He spied a tracing of runes at the top the hilt, three rows high.

_sun man life-need_   
_hunt-victory bounty_   
_handsafe eversharp_

Gerald hummed, a gimlet eye scanning the rest of the handle. It was carved with an animal motif, recalling especially the wild ibex. He nodded, satisfied.

"A fine piece," he said, not too grudging in the compliment. "I see you've been putting old Leigisfar's tutelage to use. Getting instruction from that niggard scholar is like trying to draw water from a rock."

"Yeah, he's a miser when it comes to his lore," Hedald agreed, idly peering over Gerald's shoulder to survey the handle. "At least when dealing with people who want to apply it _practically_. But I think I've learned enough of runes to do at least this much, even if he scorns the use."

"I would have etched them into the blade, though," Gerald added pointedly. "The runes on the handle will only last as long as the handle, and horn wears faster than steel."

"My work was on the handle," said Hedald. "Not the blade."

Gerald gave his brother a _look_. Hedald obstinately matched it. They held each other for a long several seconds, before Gerald snorted and relented.

"Etch the blade then, if you wish," he said. "Though I can't imagine what you might put on it when all the crucial details have been laid on the handle."

"Runes to bind and preserve the handle, obviously," said Hedald in an affectation of scholarly disinterest. His eyes gleamed triumphantly, however. "I've already got the start of a good sheath for it, and that has runes of safe return, keeping, and finding. Tie all the parts together with interdependent spells and they'll long stay whole and new."

Gerald waved this off, although he looked a touch disapproving.

"You're getting ahead of yourself, making a sheath before you even have the dimensions of the blade."

"I had the measurements of the handle you wanted, and I knew what kind of knife you were making. It was easy to guess the size and shape you'd aim for."

"Harrumph!" Gerald huffed. "If you think you know these things so well, then go on with it yourself."

Hedald nodded absently and retrieved the blade Gerald had just recently set on the shelf. Handling it carefully, he observed the subtle, twisting, fractal pattern in the metal. Spectral steel was the pride of dwarven bladesmiths, surpassed in complexity and esteem by starmetal only. Seven distinct alloys were employed in its smelting, and no matter how the resulting ingots were afterwards forged, they would invariably show the intricate shading and layering of these different metals.

It was like rolling waves, and flickering flames, and light dancing across wind-rippled grass, and the crystal geometry of precious stones twisted about like vines climbing a meshed fence. With a good polish and standard finish of double corundum glaze, the patterns of the welded metals would shine through beautifully, splintering light into myriad colors across its surface, producing an ephemeral quality of shining hues. Already this was a very fine blade, according to the skill of their kind, and few but the Deep Dwarves could make plainly better.

As his eyes danced over the patterns in the steel, Hedald absentmindedly procured a phial of acid, another of neutralizing base, a small scraping-scratching tool, and a satchel of rune stamps. It was important to get the ratio just right, and to work the metal carefully. It would not do to damage it unduly before it was even finished!

Chuckling to himself at the though, he proceeded to drip some acid onto the blade, before carefully and precisely etching the spell-string he desired into the steel. Hedald was soon absorbed in the task, and he hummed an aimless tune as he worked.

Gerald retrieved an iron ingot and a mold and took them over to the forge, while his brother labored minutely at the workbench. He put the chunk of metal in the crucible and set that above the coals, then turned his focus to the bellows. He would need to stoke the flames a bit more so as to melt the iron. Depressing the pedal and turning the crank, he caused the accordion lung to flap and blow, and the coals glowed brighter and hotter as fresh air was thrust into their midst.

Keeping an eye on the contents of the crucible, and turning the crank of the dwarven bellows, he addressed Hedald.

"How have things been with Sif?"

There was a moment of relative silence with only the creaking of the bellows, crackling of coals, and metallic scraping. Hedald was stooped over his work, but it was obvious from the tensing of his shoulders and reddening of his ears that he heard his brother loud and clear. Softly he mumbled a noncommittal response.

"They're fine. _We're_ fine."

"It doesn't sound like you are. You sound rather defensive, in fact."

"You hear what you want to hear. I tell you, we're fine. Better than fine."

"I hear what my ears tell me, and the more you talk the more sure I am. What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong!" Hedald snapped testily. Then he stopped himself and took a deep breath. "Nothing's _wrong_ ," he repeated, calmer now. "It's not anything like relationship trouble. We're both fine where we are, and there's no need to rush things. It's not a matter of relationships."

"Business, then?" guessed Gerald, humming as he eyed the iron in the crucible. "Or family. Sif's mother oversees things at Koganusan, doesn't she? And her father's mining off the Crater Lakes. I imagine that's enough to cause some kind of drama. She must be going stir-crazy these days, stuck here in the Weald."

"It's not drama," said Hedald, applying a precise quantity of base to the blade around his fresh etchings. "And it's not family. She can take the underway to see them when she wants. It's just two silver dollars and half a day's ride at the most. We've simply... been talking _money_ , lately. You know the trouble we had over her stipend a while back."

Gerald nodded. "Ah, money! Dreadful thing, but there's no escaping the need of it. Food can't be got for nothing, and the litharch's taxes need paying. You haven't enough of it for your plans, I suppose?"

"I'm sure I don't know what you mean by _plans_ ," Hedald said. "And we have enough to get by. But her pay's been getting docked lately. Not enough gold to go around, one would think, from how the government's been squeezing budgets! Something big is in the works, I tell you. Hardly anyone is left in the base."

"But Sif is."

"Yeah. Her and the dregs of the force. A bit incongruous, really."

"Half the mountain is full of trained fighters," said Gerald. "We've all served our time and learned the basics. It's not like we're defenseless, right? Besides that, it's a good ways to the border from here. They've been stationed in Fort Pine, I'm sure, or out on the marches, where there's actual need of fighting dwarves."

"Don't say that to Sif," Hedald remarked. "It would only make things worse, putting her down on the same level as us _obligates_. If there's need, she's as good as any other soldier. Better than many. And considering who her mother is..."

"Well, that's probably _why_ she's been kept back, don't you suppose?" said Gerald. "Most folk'd be glad to stay out of the line of fire, and most parents likewise to have their kids safe and sound."

"That only makes her surlier," said Hedald. "She's from a military family! She _wants_ to serve. You know what she's like. Stubborn as a mule, and more cantankerous than a wild buffalo. Fiery."

Gerald shrugged.

"I don't know what you see in her," he remarked. "Couldn't you have gone for a nicer, more sweet tempered lass?"

"She's plenty sweet," said Hedald. "Moreover, the two of us get on perfectly."

"So you say," said Gerald. "But I still think getting involved with a _dypdverg_ is overambitious of you. A sensible dwer ought to stay within his limits."

"Bah, you're too old fashioned," said Hedald. "Syvä, Matala, Ylevä—there's no need for those distinctions these days. Dwarves live where they will, and mingle freely."

"Are you ahistorian or a social commentator, to exposit on these matters?" quipped Gerald. "I know the state of things in our own country. Better than you do, I'll warrant."

"Harrumph."

Hedald turned the blade over and began work on the other side. He and his brother labored for a while in silence, not quite tense but not exactly comfortable. He looked slowly over his work, tracing the stems and branches of runic characters carefully, _skritch-skritch_ into the unpolished spectreum. He licked his lips as he worked, tasting a tang of sweat that dripped from his moustache.

His face was red and splotchy, and not just from the heat of the forge in the center of the room. He wiped away the sweat on his brow to keep it from dripping onto the blade, and he eyed the patterns in all their swirling and varied colors. He hummed and looked askance at his elder brother.

"You know Io?" he said presently.

"I believe we've met once, yes," said Gerald. "Stein-like, isn't she? That is to say, she well resembles her mother's side."

"I should think so, seeing as she and Sif are both part of the Dypstein clan."

"Sif doesn't show it, though," Gerald remarked.

"No, not in her face," Hedald conceded. "But she's got the stubbornly practical mindset of Steiner. She's as tall as one, too."

"That's true. She _is_ pretty imposing. But what about Io, then?"

"Well, you know she's wanted Sif to move down to Helmuth and work for her? She's got a management gig in some marble quarry, and she's offered Sif a nice and comfy position under her. Three kulta a week to work as her assistant."

Gerald watched the iron melting in the crucible, but while he paid close attention by eye to his work, his ears were pricked up. He was listening to Hedald, politely intrigued and honestly surprised.

"That's very generous of her," he said. "What's Sif's present stipend, again?"

"Two kulta, three hopea," Hedald said. "So not significantly less than what Io's offering, but still..."

"Pushing pencils is safer, right?" said Gerald. "Plus, those two extra hopea aren't insignificant."

"Right," said Hedald slowly. "Not that she's in any particular danger stationed with the militia, but you know that if she had her way, she'd be out on the front."

"As you've said more than once, before," Gerald said. "But three kulta and a move halfway across Dweorgia doesn't seem big enough to explain this. A pay difference of two silvers would hardly be sufficient to justify talk about _money_ , not when Sif makes a respectable amount already. You aren't exactly working for peanuts yourself, either."

"I get by," said Hedald a tad churlishly, shrugging. "But as far as the disagreement between Sif and me... our _money matters_ , as you so eloquently put it... well, Io is well-connected, right?"

"I wouldn't know, Gerald grunted. "She's outside my sphere of acquaintance."

"Well, she _is_ ," Hedald said earnestly. "She's a _dypdverg_ living in the capital, and a Steiner, at that! Not to mention the high standing of her mother, Dame Anja. Io has lots of friends in Helmuth, and some of those friends even have friends in Litharch Seppo's court. She keeps an ear to the ground at all times, and she's not ungenerous in sharing news with kin."

"And you overhear it when she shares with Sif?"

Hedald huffed.

"No, Sif _tells_ me," he said indignantly.

"Hm. If you say so," muttered Gerald. "But what's this news that has you all wound up, then, Hed? I assume there's something you haven't told me, yet."

Hedald paused, letting out a sigh as he dripped the base solution over the etchings, causing a slight foam to bubble up, which he wiped away with a cloth after a moment. Distractedly, almost, he examined the now finished runes.

"Well. You know how they've been moving more soldiers out east?" he said. "We were just talking about it."

"I'm not _that_ forgetful," Gerald sniffed. "I remember clearly. Sif's sour over not getting invited, you said."

"She is, and not least because of what Io told her." Hedald turned the blade over, absently thinking about how it would look when polished. "There are big things in the works, out there in the rest of the world. Bigger even than anyone's seen since Grandpa Orald was young, maybe. They've been pushing into the Voyeurage, way I hear it. We've got landsknecht and paladins camped on the far side of the burning trenches, wagon trains and siege engines rumbling up the old roads. They say the front line's advancing for the first time since... well, maybe the first time _ever_ , since since way back when the war first started."

"I'll believe it when I see it," said Gerald. "And I'm not fool enough to set foot on Langer land, or any place as the goblins have grimed and withered. It's just propaganda to get folk cheered up, believe you me."

"Even if it is," said Hedald, "why start _now?_ After all this time, it seems pointless to say that unless it's true. Most folk wouldn't believe it. It's been too long to believe that things could actually go our way, unless they really are."

"You're grasping at straws," Gerald quipped. "And even if something big is being planned—so what? Dear, sweet Sif is safe and sound babysitting the dregs of the force here in Timberdelf, and we've got a long stretch of guarded land between us and the enemy. Whatever might happen, if _anything_ happens, good OR bad, it won't affect us for a long while, if ever."

"Maybe," said Hedald dubiously. "But doesn't it make you curious? The Langfolk have been secure and unassailable for ages and ages. A dozen litharchs have come and gone since the war first started, and a hundred of the Amalite _urumbe_. To think things might actually be turning around... well, it's heartening, true or not."

Gerald scoffed.

"You're too damn optimistic," he said. "And what've the Sunlanders got to do with this?"

" _Me_ , too optimistic...?" Hedald muttered. He shook his head, and rather more loudly he added: "Oh, not much. Just a half share in all our grudge and grievance against Sangera. More, even, if you count their lot in this whole affair as worse than ours. And many do. Then, there's the mutual defense pact to consider..."

"Hrm," Gerald grunted. "They don't love us, though. I wouldn't like to work with that lot any more than we do already."

"Sif thinks highly of them. Says they're our best chance of pushing back the enemies."

"What? _Humans?_ " said Gerald incredulously. "What difference can _they_ make? If there was some magic quality in them to turn the whole affair around, don't you think it would've happened by now, like back when there were still folk who could remember a time before the Langers? It's been far too long for anyone with a lick of sense to believe that."

"And yet there's been serious talk of _ending_ the war," said Hedald. "Or so Io says and Sif tells it. There are people very high up who seriously think we might stand a chance of finally finishing things."

"To finish something, you first have to start it," Gerald said. "And it's been a stalemate for as long as the books go back. Sometimes they push ahead, and sometimes we push ahead. But it always returns to the status quo, eventually."

"But maybe it doesn't have to. Maybe if enough things go right..."

"Nothing goes right, Hed. Not once you involve yonder devils in your calculations."

"Maybe not if you go into it thinking like that."

"Wishful thinking accomplishes _nothing_ ," Gerald insisted. "Better to focus on your own life, your own affairs, and the work you have at hand than to waste your time on things you can't control."

"But I'm an arms smith," Hedald said peevishly. "And my lover's a sergeant in the DSDF. These matters are _part_ of our business."

"You're overambitious, calling yourself a smith of any kind," Gerald retorted. "You're still an apprentice in your big brother's forge, Hed. And sergeant or not, Sif's stuck here in the 'Delf. The two of you'd be better taking up Io's offer and moving to Helmuth than sticking around here and aimlessly debating politics."

"You think so?" said Hedald stiffly. "Hmph. Well, she _has_ mentioned a very generous contract she wants us to take. Sif and I are in disagreement over it, though."

"I can believe that," Gerald sniffed. "But her family's business is good in Helmuth, isn't it? There're loads of dypdverg in the capital."

"Oh, yes," Hedald said, nodding and brightening a little. " _Very_ good. We're only a sixteenth Stahl, ourselves, but folk still bring us tons of metalwork, don't they? Just because we've got a few drops of Iron blood. And Sif's family in Helmuth are pure _syväkääpiö_. The Syväkivi are no small deal."

"A sixteenth Stahl is the same as pure _lavdverg_ , or near enough," Gerald said. "Besides, brother Herald and cousin Skald show it better than we do."

"And Skald and Herald aren't in the blacksmith business, are they?"

Gerald shrugged dismissively.

"I'd still say it's for the reputation of our skill," he remarked. "Plenty of dwarves have deep blood, even if far fewer are actually counted as part of the old tribes. Some of our closest competitors could be mistaken for full-fledged Deep Dwarves."

"Maybe by one of the high bumpkins in the Valley, or down in the Neathweald. But not by any good and sensible Low Dwarf." Hedald gestured dismissively. "Still, whatever the case, it IS a very good business. They handle masonry contracts as well as quarry work, see, and Io's offered Sif and me a spot on the next construction team sent down to Amal."

"Ah. Stone work in human country?" said Gerald, grimacing. "I can see why you're hesitant to take it, Hed. Amalites are fine folk, and masonry is a respectable pursuit, but put together like that... 's'just not in our nature, I'll warrant."

"It's not me. I'd be glad for the work," Hedald said. "I've told you what Io offers in pay. _Very_ generous. But Sif's still against it."

"Really? _Sif?_ " said Gerald sarcastically. "And here I thought she and her sister got on famously."

"They do," said Hedald, either not detecting or not caring about the sarcasm. "Never seen a pair of siblings closer, though they've spend half their lives a thousand miles apart. But Sif has no interest in working _for_ Io."

"So it's a matter of pride, then."

"Partly. Sif is still an officer of the DSDF before everything else, in heart as much as by contract. While she could probably get out of it if she wanted, she really _doesn't_ want to. Plus, there's also the fact that she wants me to go into dedicated arms smithy, and that'd be a lot tougher to do in Helmuth, where there's so much competition."

"Not much call for dedicated armsmiths in this day and age, though," Gerald remarked. "Despite the war. Whatever you might hear of goings-on away east, I say things have been as quiet with Gobelind and Sangera as they ever have. I know arms and armor are a hobby and fascination of yours, but Dweorgia has more than enough of _that_. Thrice as many swords as hands, they say, and enough mail to blanket every hill and mountain from Hoarbrow to Fenmark! Wasteful, really."

"That's what I tell her," said Hedald absently. His tone was a hint off, though, and he absently stroked the length of the knife blade. His eyes flicked to the tools and chemicals for treating, finishing, and polishing.

Gerald followed his youngest brother's glance with a knowing eye. He shook his head, but there was a hint of upward curling between his mustache and his beard.

"It's because of dwarves like you, Hed, that this country is so overstocked on martial kit," he said in a touch of exasperation.

"Oh, go dunk your beard, Gerry," said Hedald peevishly.

Gerald snorted back a laugh.

"You're too touchy, baby brother!" he said. "Can't take a jibe to save your life. But I don't mean anything by it. I know you've got your heart set on that sort of work."

He removed the ceramic crucible, putting a pole through the slot and lifting it over the mold. Tipping the pot, he poured molten iron into a trough shaped like the head of a hammer. Fairly viscous and fiery red, the liquid metal filled the mold.

"It's not profitable, though," said Hedald.

"No, it isn't," Gerald agreed. "And that's a stumbling block you can't get over—not without a lot of work and creativity. You've got one, in my opinion, but in the other you've always come up a bit short."

Hedald grumbled, rubbing the knife blade with a carefully prepared mixture that caused it to glint in the red-orange light.

"I work hard enough," he said.

"That's a matter of opinion," replied Gerald lightly. "But enough. You've still only said a little about things between you and Sif. Tell on, brother."

Hedald huffed.

"Not much more I can say," he grumbled. "Io wants us to move down to Helmuth and talk about that contract in the Gaegorra."

"You don't mean the Red Hills of the dwarf-men, do you?" said Gerald in a bit of a surprised tone. "Brother, I don't know about you, but I'd work with Clicksey on the wild peninsula before I had anything to do with the little people."

"What's it have to do with you? But they call us little people, also," said Hedald absently. "The Amalites, that is. _Tabuv_ and _Tzeni_ , they say, the dwarves and the pygmies."

" _Cats and dogs_ , says I," Gerald grunted. "That Io's gone mad as a Langer if she thinks the Tzeni will have anything to do with our sort. Umben are pleasant enough, and Swazi know the value of lodestones on sailing ships, and the Amali are fair dealers all round. But Tzeni and Clicksey I'd avoid, as any sensible dwarf should. They don't love us."

"You don't love them, perhaps," said Hedald, giving his brother a somewhat reproving look.

"Oh, they're all friends compared to the Goblins and the Langfolk and their infernal _garg_ ," Gerald said in a reasonable enough tone. "Allies in need, and all that. I respect the Amalites as a people, on sheer principle. But I don't love those who don't love me."

It was now Hedald's turn to shake his head despairingly.

"I understand the crown princess is involved in this contract, though," he said.

"Of Amal, you mean?" Gerald grunted. "Not miserly old Malak's daughter?"

"Yeah, Vera Marale Urunwe," said Hedald with a nod.

"I've heard the name," said Gerald, looking up from the mold. "She has a reputation even up here."

"A good one."

" _That_ is a matter of opinion."

"Well, she's said to be immensely charismatic." Hedald shrugged. "An orator of unrivalled skill, and a very handsome woman by human standards. They call her a genius."

"They said the same of flint-handed Malak, when he was young," said Gerald. "And of war-mad Veng before him. Yet look at the state of the Entente now."

"It's the same as it's ever been, according to our parents."

Gerald snorted.

"They don't look the same places we do," he said. "Militarily, perhaps, things are at the usual status quo. But economically? There's been too little trade between us and Amal, and we've got smiths and masons with eager hands but no _work_. There are no great new projects to be done. The mountains and plains and valleys and rivers are all settled, gentrified, and _protected_."

Hedald knew what his brother was talking about.

Once, all the lands beyond Helmuth had seemed new and strange and fresh for shaping. Like sculptors the dwarves of old had exerted the power of their craft and their industry to raise up mountains and carve out valleys. In their people's youth the land was seen as a changeable thing, and they had worked with its substance to shape the geography of their realms according to their desire.

There was less difference between the kinds, then. Dyp, Lav, Hoy: they had all been more similar in skill and stature. Indeed, the Lav had barely started to emerge as a distinct strain among the twelve tribes, and there had been no shortage of labors to undertake, or innovations to be made. Fire, wheel, lever, rope. Stone, bronze, iron, steel. Gear, crank, axle, engine. Methods and sciences and crafts were still novel and evolving. In those days all dwarves were filled with ambition, and they undertook one endeavor after another, mighty mega-projects that changed the shape of the earth itself.

They seeded fields of metal and crystal in the rocky hills, growing a harvest of gem and ores the way other kinds would grow corn or cabbage. Twisting spires and ponderous domes they carved from bedrock, ever building higher and delving deeper. And when one work was finished it would be turned to some other use, mountain ranges disassembled for raw material, forests transplanted to make way for fields.

But as time passed it eventually came to be that certain works were deemed _sacrosanct_ for their place in history, or else too crucial in the purpose they served. Dwarves became sentimental about their creations, and they were less willing to recycle them for other projects. This was a slow process at first, and initially only affected places like Helmuth, the ancient volcano from whose slopes dwarven civilization had first sprung, or the iron-gated overwatches along the northern march.

Contact with humans in the cradled lands of Paramba between the Intercourse and the Gorepeaks, and in the wide southern countries that would eventually become the united realm of Amal, greatly hastened this process. It was an incalculable effect, not something learned from humans, but more a response born in an attempt to maintain distinct identity from them. Meeting other speaking creatures, other _wedhu_ , made the dwarves want more strongly to have a firm footing of "dwarvishness".

So the shape of the lands changed less and less, and fewer great projects were undertaken. Lesser works the dwarves pursued in those times, the building of fortresses and walls and towers. These were great compared to the endeavors of humans, but paled next to the primeval earthworks of old. The dwarves concerned themselves less with raw, elemental firmament and more with brick and mortar and iron plate.

And when the spawn of accursed Lanigav first came in force and drove the dwarves back, conquering Paramba, allying with Gobelind, besieging Amal, their people were forced into a defensive position. They lost their territories in the Lowgores and were driven back over the Rearbourn into their cradle lands. Ever since, the dwarves had focused most on maintaining their bounds. Great works still they accomplished, but no longer could they freely shape the lands, for they had to maintain constant defenses against the langfolk and the goblins. And they stagnated in cold war alongside the Amalites for centuries and centuries until this cautious conservativism was their default state.

These days there was little that could be done that would be _permitted_. No new innovations, no new wonders, no new labors. With recent generations Hedald knew it had become increasingly trendy to resent this, and to long for the days of yore. Gerald belonged to that school of thought, and so to an extent did Herald, their middle brother. But Hedald considered himself neutral on the matter.

"Still, I've heard excellent things about the lady Vera," he said fairly. "She's ambitious, they say. Driven with all the human spirit of determination and cunning. If she's organizing some great work, I'd like to be part of it."

"You're not a stoneworker," said Gerald. "Your passion is smithy and bladecraft. Masonry was never your desire, and I bet Sif knows that as well as I do. And she's not much of a mason, either, for all her Stein blood."

Hedald frowned.

"I am not averse to the work," he said.

"But you wouldn't relish it," answered Gerald. "Or learn much relevant to your craft. And getting involved with that Vera can only lead to trouble, if half of what I've heard about her is true."

"That's a big _if_ ," said Hedald.

"But not the biggest one in this discussion."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I like the first part of this chapter rather a lot--it's one of the oldest parts in this story so far, having been written months back when I was just beginning to consider the creation of an original story. I think the descriptions there are pretty decent, and I also do still somewhat like parts of Gerald and Hedald's interactions. But there is a lot of exposition, too, and it gets repetitive and possibly tonally inconsistent by the end. I'll definitely want to give this a real gutting at some point in the future, if only to cut out the more subpar sections.
> 
> Also, I'm sleepy as fuck. Blarg.


	5. Chapter 5

She swung in a wide arc, the stroke swift and fierce. Her arms flexed, tense with the weight of her weapon, yet light as air under the driving strength of her muscles. Sweat dripped down her skin, and her eyes were intent on the body of her foe, tracking the movement of her opponent's weapon even as she herself attacked.

Round swung the end of her weapon, and up swung the foe's. She backstepped and twisted, bringing her blade around to sweep over the other, warding it aside with a blow to the flat. The _nakilya_ barely missed her face, and she swerved to duck her shoulder under the arc of the deflected weapon.

Her chest heaved, and she gripped the handle firmly, secure but not needlessly tight. She turned the weapon level to the ground and thrust its point toward the breast of her enemy. The younger woman sidestepped, moving away to gain a second of recovery, and she raised her weapon in rejoinder.

Lebera caught her squire's waster with the flat of her own training sword, and, so binding it, used her greater strength to force the weapon's point to the floor. Then, taking advantage of this opening, she kicked and swept the girl's legs out from under her.

Marwi Timoyo, squire and apprentice of Lebera, fell onto her rear with a grunt. She winced more from the embarrassment of defeat than from the pain of her fall.

"Drat," she muttered. "You've beat me again, master."

"But you did a little better this time," said Lebera, slinging her waster over her shoulder.

Marwi rubbed a sore backside and looked ruefully up at her mentor. She was slighter in build than Lebera, a fair bit shorter and distinctly more girlish in frame. Her eyes were dark brown, and her lips quirked in a smile that betrayed something of pleasure despite her swift and sound defeat.

"Did I?" she said skeptically. "You're too generous in your praise, master. I did awfully."

Lebera stooped and took Marwi's hand. She looked into the girl's eyes with a firm expression.

"Nonsense," she said, pulling Marwi back onto her feet with evidently minimal exertion. "You nearly got me with that last attack. It was a real work out this time."

As if to punctuate this remark, she brushed a hand across her forehead, wiping away a few drops of sweat. Her tunic also clung with moisture in some places, a careworn and threadbare old garment that she only wore for occasions like this, when she was liable to get her clothes ripped or dirty in exercise.

"If you say so..." Marwi said dubiously. She removed her hand from Lebera's. "But I can still go another round, if you want."

"Nah," Lebera said, dismissing this with a wave of the hand. "You should save your energy. We've already spent more time training today than we should. It's good to be diligent, but we shouldn't neglect our other responsibilities. Or that's what Tzinte always tells me," she added a touch humorously.

"I trust your judgement," Marwi responded with courteous deference. "I suppose you'll say we should work on our _deiwos_ next, then?"

"Balenge?" said Lebera. "That's where you outdo me, though! You're a very good channeler, Marwi."

"Oh... Th-thank you, master," Marwi said, looking and sounding a little pleasantly taken aback. "I _do_ try very hard in that. I don't know if I'd say that I do better than you, though. Not in real combat."

"You aren't exactly a novice, kid," Lebera chortled. "But thanks for the compliment."

Marwi picked up her waster, and following Lebera she made for the gate.

They were in the training grounds of Kartya Kinte, the southeastern district of Amanta Turumba. The hill on which the old city had been built climbed slowly from the northern shore of the Yellow River, and a road paved with closely fitted white stones wound up to the flattened crest. Clean-sided mansions rose amidst the lush greenery of watered terraces, the homes of nobility and centers of governance shining like gold in the heart of a vast, sprawling metropolis.

By the fashion of Amanta's building, the innermost city wall had only a single entrance, and this was over the river that cut through the great hollow, piercing the otherwise inviolate faces of bedrock which enclosed the capital and its tributary hamlets. In the midst of the river before the hill there was an island, and on that island there was a ziggurat that had been placed there in ancient times. Climbing in four sheer flights it rose to the prophet's shrine, the tomb of Wodaz that was among the foremost hallows of Menaltya.

Two bridges linked that island to the far shores: one upon the southeast, and one upon the northwest. The southeast bridge was wide and solid, built to support the feet of hundreds of thousands of pilgrims, but the northwest was slender and elegant, for the use of just a few. By this latter bridge, through the tall Southgate, was the only road into Turumba where the nobles and the government resided.

Just within the gate was the district of Kartya, home of the clan Mbengo. This was a place where the houses were like castles, the manors grim and glorious, grand and austere. Amid these castellan mansions like a shield at the city's breast was a base for the housing and training of soldiers, Kartya Kinte, mightiest of the ancient fortresses of men, where the most elite of Amal's soldiery had trained throughout the centuries in mastering war and its many arts.

The forward courtyard of Fort Kartya was twenty yards long, and half again that wide. The curtain walls that reared up in the south were some thirty feet high, made from red sandstone bricks that were laid nearly ten feet thick at the base. A path paved with cobblestone led to the gatehouse, which overlooked the exercise of the soldiers on base. Targets set up for those who practiced their shooting along the east wall of the court, while in the west was space for sparring and exercise.

Atop the battlements patrolled sentries, and they were clad in scaled maille of spectral steel that glinted and cast off rays of splintering sunlight. Their helms were tall and scarlet plumed, and scarlet were their mantles flowing. These were the Aminte, even as were told of in song taken from the words of En, First-King.

_"Aminte mar zu ente bar, umea. Arai marya mada u menden laimente anuma? Mea suzu lara u nakanta karawa, balente balenge, larya laite, teban umbar, lante tyer! Aa, amma aminte, Pyamba gwinte umbinte! Eturu anuma, zoru Amal!"_

"Behold the fair knights of mighty battle. How beautifully good and blessed are they, the honored paladins? Look upon their flowing capes and armor shining, their helms as _deiwos_ , their long swords, their shields broad, their spears keen! Ah, the knights of our people, Newham's defending champions! Praise them, my Amal!"

These were the Aminte, the knights of the Amma, among whose number were Marwi and Lebera counted. Watch towers stout and solid rose at regular intervals along the curtain walls, each ascending around fifteen feet above the parapets. More of the Aminte could be seen standing atop the battlements with bows of horn, polished ivory, and a quiver of ebony arrows. They were a presentation of the city's strength in its heart, the last (but not least) meaningful defense against invading forces.

Banners blew in the wind, draped inside the walls and bearing heraldic devices that represented the divisions of Amalite soldiery, many of which tied to the households of feudal chiefs who governed the confederate fiefdoms beyond Amanta. Some held images of beasts real or mythic, or of trees or flowers, which represented qualities held or aspired to by the corps. Others still depicted old saints or heroes, persons of long renown in the song and lore of Amal.

Standing stones adorned with carven reliefs were set at regular intervals along the path to the gatehouse, chiefly depicting such iconography as enheartened the garrison and might inspire them, in the hour of need, to great feats in defense of land and people. Much of the imagery was done in styles long disused, pronouncedly antique methods of portraying _wedhu, wena_ , and _welo_.

Broad faces looked down on Lebera and Marwi, faces traced with marks of warpaint as was now used only in ceremony, roughly figured hands bearing weapons of a fashion most primitive compared to the arms borne in this age of the world, and their bodies were traced with little to resemble what might be called armor. Their visages were somewhat faded in places with the weathering of the stone, even with fairly regular cleaning and maintenance, and only generally reminiscent of what Lebera saw in those around her. It was not, by any means, a photorealistic style.

Yet there was something comfortingly familiar about them. Perhaps it was in part their sheer ancientry that did it, the thought that these stones had been looked upon by uncounted generations before herself, that they had stood in this place for the reign of a hundred kings. It gave her a sense of security, a conviction that even should the worst befall her and her comrades in the field of battle, it would not touch the people within these lands they protected. Nor had it past the bulwark of Amanta, not since the end of the Reconquista more than a thousand years ago.

It was a peaceful and somehow accomplished sort of feeling, one that did much to make the burning ache of exercise and the numbing dullness of drills seem worthwhile and bearable. It gave one a sense that even their most ignominious labors would contribute in some way, meaningful however small, to the preservation of these lands, the _Ammarn Pyaamba_.

Lebera, having gone through all these usual thoughts, looked to her squire, who appeared glad to be finished with exercises for the day, whatever she might have said of her willingness and ability to continue. She smiled, seeing Marwi's pretty and youthful face. The girl seemed less weathered than herself, in some way. This was a bit silly to think, perhaps, since Lebera was only a little older than her apprentice, but it was what she thought, all the same.

They went through the gatehouse, greeting the sentries with a casual but courteous "Hello," and heading on through. They emerged into the median bailey, which was arranged like a city block in miniature before the inmost wall of Fortress Kartya, with barracks and messes and armories, cisterns and granaries and parks, hostels and musters and houses of visitation, holding cells and places of relief. This was the chief base of Amanta, where resided the troops and generals who governed all the rest of the city's militia, and ultimately all the rest of the armies of Amal.

Beyond another wall, and another gatehouse far ahead, Lebera could see the sharply jutting turrets of Donjon Mbengo, the central keep of Kartya Kinte that no foe but one had ever penetrated. Thither she had gone only twice since her first transfer to this base. Once with the rest of the new Aminte for their introduction to the general, and once more for another, more personal introduction.

Lord Barca was a stern man, cut from a loftier mold than most of the masses. He was famed far and wide, praised by many as one of the mightiest Amalite generals in centuries. He had fought in the daring but finally disastrous campaign of King Veng the Valiant, and by the cunning of his strategems and the sheer might of his arms he had brought back home many a company which might otherwise have been destroyed in alien lands north of the great river. Furthermore he was head of the Mbengo clan, which was among the foremost of Amal's high families, a house from which had been sprung many of the confederacy's greatest captains and champions.

He was also, much more pertinently, the uncle and adoptive father of Tzinte. So naturally Lebera had some level of politely distant familiarity with the man. She wasn't especially well acquainted, though, and she certainly did not dare claim any benefit of nepotism. Anyways, the kinship and social standing of Tzinte Mbengo had been wholly irrelevant to Lebera's first decision to court him.

And she it was, indeed, who had initiated that courtship. It what was actually something of a funny story, too, how she and Tzinte first became a couple. Not comically funny so much as _interesting_ , for it had been a somewhat novel and quite unusual circumstance.

Now, it wasn't unheard of for young men to get into heated disputes over the matter of a woman's affections. It wasn't too extraordinarily rare, either—even in this day and age—for said dispute to grow so vehement that it ended with one or both men deciding to have a duel. This was a very old fashioned way of settling such arguments, certainly, and few people these days really observed all the courtesy and formality of such affairs, which were traditionally very formal and ritualized to distinguish them from common brawls.

It was less usual for women to be the ones having these duels. Although as much as a third of the volunteer corps were female, men tended to be seen as the more warlike and aggressive gender. Men were likewise more, as a rule, inclined to view violence, ceremonial or not, as a fair and honest way to sort out a tangled, protracted disagreement. Women, espeically those of noble birth and upbringing, tended to be more "delicate", if only in the sense that they were generally raised and expected to view physical violence with a certain level of disdain and incredulity, particularly when that violence was carried out between fellow Amma.

Women were traditionally the mediators of such disputes, and they were expected to be the ones who would come in and make the two sides quit being such stubborn idiots. This was only sometimes successful, of course, given the human capacity for spite and grudges, but still that was the way things were generally expected to operate.

Lebera was not a noblewoman. Nor was she a person of especially delicate sensibilities. She was now, and for most of her life had been, quite able and willing to get into fights, and when she first became genuinely enamored with Tzinte, who had been to her what she now was to Marwi, she had not been without competitors. One of those people, and probably the biggest rival, had been a young woman of a considerable higher social standing than herself.

Damara Damayo came from a wealthy family, and her parents were not insignificant members of the king's court. She was a pretty, cultured, educated woman who dressed well and looked better, being talented in many courtly pursuits, a young lady of stunning presence and outwardly regal bearing. She had been very intent on having Tzinte as her husband, whether because she saw the possibility of marriage with him as very advantageous to her family (not untrue) or because she had been genuinely smitten with him (not inconceivable).

If Miss Damara had had any flaws, then it was that, for all her not-undeserved haughtiness and confidence, she proved, at the test, to be physically meek and unwilling to commit herself to any serious risk. Also, that she was simply too entrenched in the common notions of men and women's respective roles. This is to say that when Lebera challenged Damara Damayo, in complete seriousness, to a duel for the right to pursue Tzinte's hand, the woman had naturally been incredulous and unwilling to participate.

 _"That's not how it's_ _ **done**_ _,"_ she had said with a roll of the eyes.

Lebera did not accept this as a response. Having always been very willful and obstinate, especially when younger, she had pressed the matter with a bullheaded persistence. Looking back on it now, of course, she was honestly embarrassed to think of the way she had harried Damara, perceiving with an after-the-fact clarity something of how obnoxious and unreasonable she must have seemed to the girl.

Still, was it not so that when the issue came to the attention of Tzinte himself, he had sided with _her_ , Lebera, a carpenter's daughter of no special birth or fame? He had agreed with her, and he had said that it was entirely reasonable—if admittedly unusual—for two women to settle such a dispute with a duel. And Damara, being dismayed and unwilling to put herself at physical risk (or, perhaps more kindly put, being unwilling to compromise her personal moral convictions) backed down.

Lebera wound up the winner by default. That did not much satisfy her very much, at the time, but now she was glad it had gone that way. It was really the cleanest and most peaceful resolution that such a scenario could have reached. Anything else would have been troublesome, and might have afterward marred her gladness, for the gulf between her and Damara, as fighters, was absolute.

And when she thought of it that way, she did feel a little guilty for essentially bullying the girl into giving up on the man she liked. That guilt was much mitigated by the fact of Damara's otherwise privileged lifestyle, though, and also by her rather prompt engagement to another, similarly well-placed but slightly less coveted young man not long afterward. So it came out about even, except for when Lebera was feeling particularly pensive.

Thinking about this, and drawing her eyes away from the donjon's turrets like a hedge of ivory spears, Lebera looked at Marwi and thought of how things had been going between them. She was pleased to have such a sweet, respectful, and obedient squire. Marwi was a good kid, although calling her _kid_ was a bit inaccurate. There wasn't that much difference between them, after all, not in terms of age. The girl was even a bit older than Lebera had been when she first became a squire.

Now Lebera smiled, thinking of the time she first met her mentor. Her thoughts grew fonder , recalling with amusement the way she'd so impolitely greeted Tzinte that first time. It was before she'd really known who he was, and before she'd come to... well, _love him_ , though that was still a slightly embarrassing thing to say. But it was true, and she loved him with all the foolish sincerity of a human heart. She loved many people, in some fashion or other. Her lover, her kin, her lord, and even her pupil. That was the way with everyone, wasn't it?

"How are you, master?"

Marwi's words came to Lebera out of left field, catching her quite by surprise. But she recovered fairly quickly.

"I'm fine," Lebera said, a reflexively flippant response. She grinned. "Not dead, right?"

Marwi laughed and smiled prettily in return.

"Right, I suppose not," she said agreeably, nodding. "But how was it at home? Your visit to your family, that is."

"Oh, that? It went well. They liked Tzinte."

"I'm sure they did. He seems very nice."

"He is, he is."

Lebera turned down a sideway, heading for a dome-roofed structure that bore a sign reading _Masita Ngwada_. This essentially just meant 'bath house', and it was indeed little more than a public bath for use by the soldiers of Fort Kartya. It was a fair bit nicer than most such facilities in Byohamba, of course, being furnished for the comfort and relief of some of Amal's most honored knights and knight captains, and it was also free to all who served on-base.

Free, with the unspoken caveat that those who abused the privilege would have it revoked. This was a military base, after all. Discipline was paramount.

Lebera knew she was pushing things a tiny bit to use the bath now, when she was only two thirds through the day, and she was probably setting a bad example for her student, besides, with this indulgence. Yet she felt a desire to bathe, and not just because the two of them were fairly sweaty. It was a vague notion that something good would happen if she bathed now that led Lebera to come here.

She often had such feelings. Her mother called it women's intuition, while Nana Yui called it _uncanny_. Whatever the name, Lebera was once quite used to acting on these impulses, even when they had gone against common wisdom. With the deepening sobriety of adulthood, however, she found herself more often second-guessing this intuition. While it had rarely led her wrong before, she sometimes felt a little hesitant to do as seemed so sensible and obvious to that nonsensical and incomprehensible part of her inner mind.

Still, she wanted to take a bath, feeling or no. It would be a nice bath, she was certain.

So she went into the bath house with Marwi. They talked a little more as they went inside. The baths seemed to be largely empty at present, most of the other soldiers on base busy still with various work or self-improvement. Save for cares about Marwi's less considerable stamina, Lebera would probably still be out there herself. The girl was talented, and descended from a family of fair renown in its own right, but she was not the hardiest of bodies.

They walked over floors of cool, glossy dwarf-tile. The tiles were hexagonal in shape and intricately detailed, bearing patterns that suited Amalite aesthetics: _li'i welo_ mostly, gracefully blossoming geometries and concentric rings of close-fitted shapes that recalled flower petals spreading under their feet. Almost, if one looked only from the corner of their eye, they might be tricked into thinking that they walked through a beautifully tended garden or a meadow of vibrant wildflowers.

Iridescent was the tile, cut or treated or polished in some way that made its color vague and pleasantly bewildering, a dance of hues that shifted in rivers of flowing light cast from the _kijiro_ lamps. It was black in its substance, maybe, or a color similarly deep and dark, but its surface shone and gently dazzled. Like _nyokin_ it was in that way, almost; like the starmetal that dwarves prized over any other substance.

Yet obviously it wasn't such. Starmetal was utterly black, like umbreum, except that it was speckled as a field of stars with intrusions or extrusions, immeasurably small and numerous, like the spectreum of Aminte maille that shimmered in light and in the kindling of its bearer's will. But unlike _wakin_ or _srakin_ , _nyokin_ was not used in any unworthy labors. The dwarves alone could shape it according to their will, and they would not do so except for very rare and important things. Besides, the tile was obviously some kind of stone or ceramic. Starmetal, on the other hand, was a metal.

The name alone made that fairly obvious.

Lebera's musings were brushed aside by the feel of a hand clasping the ties of her blouse. For a moment she was startled by this, and were it not for the relative softness and smallness of these hands she might have turned and punched the owner. But she knew at once who these belonged to, and she guessed what their possessor intended.

"You don't need to help me undress, Marwi," she said to her pupil. "I can do that just fine on my own."

"You shouldn't have to," said Marwi dutifully. "It is my privilege as your squire to assist you in such matters."

"A fair and courtly way of putting it," Lebera chuckled. "But I'm not a terribly courtly person. It feels lazy to let you help me with _everything_. Besides, I never had to do such a thing when I was Tzinte's squire. Nobody told me it was something you were expected to do."

There was a touch of dry accusation in her tone, a slight layer of amusement.

Marwi's face flamed at the remark, and she stammered briefly.

"W-Well, that would have been different," she said. "He's a man, and you're a woman. That wouldn't have been _proper_."

"No, it wouldn't," Lebera agreed goodhumoredly. "But is it really any more proper between two women?"

"This isn't anything indecent, master," Marwi said, a touch indignant now. "It's simply courtesy. My pleasure is to serve you."

Somebody of a more lecherous mentality might have thought a number of rather inappropriate things at this statement, whether they had any attraction to Marwi or not. And she was a rather pretty girl, for her part, certainly more classically feminine in face and build than rough-and-tumble Lebera, so it would not be hard for someone to find her attractive.

Lebera did think her squire was cute, if mostly in a little sister sort of way. Nor was Lebera exactly innocent or puritanical, although she rarely settled her mind for very long in the gutter. She felt a twinge of slightly guilty mirth at the phrasing of Marwi's statement, but no more, and she did not feel compelled to make any crude or rakish comment. She merely smiled a little and leaned back as Marwi proceeded, undaunted, to undress her.

"I'm hardly incapable, though," Lebera said lightly, after a moment's silence.

"It's a question of dignity, not capability," responded Marwi. "A person of your standing shouldn't have to do such vulgar things for herself at all."

"What standing?" snorted Lebera. "I'm just a knight and a swordsman of some modest skill. That's nothing special. You're nearly as good as myself, in the arts."

"But I'm nowhere near as STRONG as you," Marwi insisted. "Or as renowned. You're practically a legend. Wildfire Lebera..."

"Oh, I think I've heard that name before," Lebera said, cocking her head. " _Z'wemalor_ ," she parroted softly, humming to herself. "The Wildfire. Is it a big thing, then? That is, is it actually something a lot of people call me?"

Marwi's hands fumbled, and she spluttered momentarily.

"Is it something people _call you_...?" she repeated a touch incredulously. "That's the epithet given to you by your peers and your people, master! It's the _amwa_ you've earned with your deeds and accomplishments. You shouldn't disregard such a thing."

Lebera shrugged. "Yes, yes, names are important. We learn that out in the sticks, too," she said dryly. "But it's not as though anyone's ever come up to me and said _'Your deed-name is now "Z'wemalor", Lebera.'_ "

Marwi shook her head despairingly.

"I can't believe it," she said. "How can you be so amazing, and yet...?"

"I've never claimed to be amazing," Lebera said. "Not since I got old enough to know better."

"You _are_ , though. You're like..." Marwi gestured vaguely, laying aside Lebera's shirt. "You're so _famous_. You've done so many incredible things, despite..."

"Despite what?" Lebera crossed her arms over her chest and cocked an eyebrow at Marwi.

"D-Despite being, well..." Marwi mumbled. A little shamefacedly, she finished with, "...a commoner. You know?"

Lebera smiled.

"I know. And I get why you think that makes the things I've done more impressive, too." She placed a hand on Marwi's shoulder and squeezed. "But no matter whether your dad is a carpenter or a courtier, you are yourself. I don't think I've had an especially harder time than anyone else in our line of work."

She then began to undo Marwi's shirt. The girl froze in place, tensing up significantly at this, and her eyes went wide in something not quite like fright.

"Wha—? M-Master?!" Marwi stammered. "What are you...?"

"I'm returning the favor," Lebera said. "You're my junior, not my servant."

"You," Marwi said, looking stiff as a board. "You, uh... Th-That's okay. I can... er... myself, you know... uh..."

Lebera laughed, and she deftly slipped off Marwi's tunic.

"It doesn't feel right being waited on," she said pleasantly. "I want to contribute too, yeah? You're a sweet kid. Real cute."

Her meaning, of course, was that Marwi's kindly and respectful demeanor, together with the careful and courteous manners which caused her to seem so tentative and meek, gave the girl an endearing quality that made Lebera want to dote on and protect her. She was like a puppy.

Marwi might have taken it otherwise, though. She squeaked and went from being stiff to seeming as soft as putty. She did not say anything for a long moment, nor did she any longer resist. She was shyly immobile as Lebera finished up, before turning to grab each of them a towel. Her face was hot, and she covered herself as soon as she had the towel.

Lebera was less perturbed, and did not seem to have anything to note about Marwi's embarrassment, beyond perhaps an indulgent smile that crossed her lips.

"C'mon," she said, ruffling Marwi's hair. "Let's go clean up, already."

* * *

 

With this, they headed into the bathing area proper beyond a thin wooden divider, passing through a curtained doorway. The _masita_ within were of goodly make, great square tubs with thick wooden sides raised on hefty stone slabs. The smaller of these baths could each comfortably fit at least a half dozen people, and the largest was like a steaming pond.

Some of the tubs were tubs indeed, just very large buckets that one might move this way or that, bringing out or stowing away according to need. But others were set into the floor, pits dug into the ground and filled with hot water. The former had small spouts set into their outer sides, set with levers that, when pulled would, open the spigots and let the water drain back out. The latter were more complicated.

An expert on the minute histories of Fort Kartya might tell you that this bath house was built on the foundations of a much older communal bathing area. The wooden tubs were of a very old fashion that was not much different, most scholars would say, from what might have been used by the Ancient Amalites. But here, the pits were older.

From its first conception in the high days of Old Amanta, Fort Kartya had been as much a symbol of power as a real defense. Back then, of course, it had not been the Langfolk or the Gorgun against whom they sought to defend. It was their own kind that they fought in those times, rival clans, or rebelling slaves, or other tribes of Men. And against most of these the unique geography of Amanta—with the sheer outer faces of the basin in which it was set, and only two rather narrow and historically well-guarded points of entry—had been more than sufficient fortification.

Kartya Kinte was first built by the clan of Umbegonen, which had then been preeminent in Amanta, as both a show of their power and a stronghold from which to rein in the city's sprawling offshoots. For there was no _urumbe_ in those days, no monarch or emperor with the power to overrule and govern the tribal chiefs and feudal lords of Arn Amal, and their country was then just a loose collection of peoples with a few broadly shared qualities. If there were any authority to unite them all, then it had been the priests of Menaltya, and they were but ascetics who committed their time first and foremost to contemplation and preservation of the teachings of Wodaz Hwod'hassa.

So in making this very great and majestic fortress, the Umbegonen had naturally hoped to impress their power on all people within the cloister of Amanta, and they exerted great pains therefore to make sure that it would be so. From the striking red curtain walls, robust and neaty laid with enormous sandstone bricks, to the narrow-windowed watch towers from which the eyes of burning torches looked out across the river, to its sheer sprawling size and mighty gates banded with iron, Kartya Kinte was a magnificent fastness by measure of mankind. Even today it was still reckoned a very great fortress, though it paled next to such awesome bastions as the Castle-City of Nyonta Gwintamba, or wide-moated Swazimba upon its floating shores, or the Gilded Tower of Mallakit rebuilt and embattled by the Laimente of Empress Malori.

But as for the baths.

Because the fortress was meant to be marvelous and awe-inspiring, a symbol of the power and wealth of the Umbegonen, it was furnished with many things that would have been very tricky and laborious to contrive in ancient days. The pit-baths, imitating such natural hotsprings as one might find scattered here and there throughout Amantarn, were at the time of Fort Kartya's first construction no small marvel of engineering, and plumbing and running water, technologies which at the time seemed almost on par with witchcraft, and subterranean drainage networks to carry refuse and sewage beyond the sight or smell of the people, were incorporated into Kartya Kinte's plans very early on.

Indeed, the plumbing of Fort Kartya was perhaps the oldest surviving example of such technology in Amal, and certainly the oldest still in use. But the system used by the ancient builders was not one that stood up to modern standards, for it had then been a novel exercise and a craft in its infancy. The methods they used, while effective for the time, and certainly ingenious for a world with few prior examples to copy, were ultimately not the most sound or efficient. Some of the oldest documents found in old, forgotten vaults described soldiers getting sick from fouled water, and sewage bubbling up into the baths, and sections of the courtyards collapsing into drainage tunnels below.

It proved to be an unmitigated disaster, not long after its start, and very soon the plumbing went completely ignored and unused by the soldiers, while the masters of the fort—who had spent a great deal of their wealth to see it built—did their best to keep the stories of this embarrassment from getting out to the people as a whole. For a long time afterwards the supply of water in Fort Kartya was handled in more old fashioned ways, and the plumbing was nearly forgotten.

As a matter of fact, it would not be until the days of rebuilding after the two hundred year Reconquista, when dwarf-craft was first employed on a large scale in Amal by the displaced northmen and their Dweorgian allies, that the waterworks of Kartya would be renovated and made more reliably functional. This was still a very long time ago, though, and less had needed to be changed than one might think.

Marwi thought about these things to keep her mind distracted. She stared abashedly, fixedly ahead and took in the open chamber of the bath house, concentrating on the architecture to keep from thinking too much about her master beside her.

The bathing chamber was impressively furnished, but not excessively so. Carved panels were set along the walls to form a collage of reliefs depicting imagery typical to such facilities. Naturalistic backdrops were graven into the wood, emulating a classical style that Marwi knew from her studies to have originated in the days of the early middle kingdom, specifically during the second Migilosa Dynasty.

Descended from warrior-king Malorak Migilosa, who in the twenty-third year of the fourth prophecy was bestowed the _mantyen_ holy weapons symbolic of Laimente Nturu, the Migilosa were an especially fierce line of kings. They were the first _urumbe_ since Manda Sei'o to advance the lines of defense beyond the Yellow Mountains, and they established many forts and castles to hold those lines. Additionally the Migilosa Academy was established in their time, and this did much to better the armies of Amal.

Now, the first Migilosa dynasty was ended when the son of Malori Lamena was deemed unfit by the elders to succeed his mother, and was passed over for the daughter of the chief elder. At the time this was resisted by some who deemed it an imprudent selection, but Findwi Findavingi proved equal to the task, and the Findavingi Dynasty would be one of the most prosperous in Amal's history, if also the shortest lived. Indeed, it lasted only until the days of her son, Benab the Blessed, and those were cut short by a death of sudden illness.

In the aftermath of King Benab's untimely demise, the grandson of Malori, Malak the Second—whose father before him had been deemed incompetent—was chosen to be the next _urumbe_. This was controversial at the time, as had been the choice of Findwi, but also as with Findwi it proved fair and well-founded. So began the second Migilosa Dynasty, and in its time there was much advancement of culture and the arts. Malak II was called "The Patron" in his day for his support of the arts, and he immortalized the wealth of the Findavingi Dynasty by investing goodly shares of it into many beautiful works of music, sculpture, and painting.

Now Marwi thought of Malak Elarag, the current _urumbe_. He was the sixth king of the Urunwe Dynasty, fourth of the name Malak, and not the least loved. But neither the most highly renowned. While the Urunwe had produced some very excellent rulers, and indeed had guided the kingdom in an age of strength and prosperity second only to that of the Findavingi and Migilosa, there were many among the Lords of Amal who now deemed the worth of this line nearly spent.

This opinion was not so widely held that the daughter of Malak, Vera Marale, was likely to be passed over for the seat (as a matter of fact she already bore one of the _mantyen_ , Ralyarya sword of songs) but there was not much good will left for the Urunwe among Amal's nobility. King Veng Atenan's disastrous campaign spent much of the people's best blood in a vain push over the river, and in attempting to end the endless stalemate he had squandered generations of slowly built strength.

Even among Marwi's own family, whose rise in fortunes had come about in large part thanks to the favor of the Urunwe, many were somewhat leery of Malak Elarag. Never mind that he was by all accounts a very shrewd and prudent ruler, or that his daughter was...

"Good day to you, Lebera. I have been expecting your arrival."

...right here _._

_Oh._

Marwi gave a start, torn at last from her neurotic musings. She saw the princess of Amal, heir apparent to the dictatorship of Ammarn Pyaamba, sitting on the edge of the middle bath, the largest of the artificial _masi_. Vera Marale Urunwe smiled charmingly at them, seated with her towel neatly folded beside her.

Vera was a very beautiful woman, by all accounts. She was uncannily tall, just shy of seven foot, with a slender form and shapely visage. Bright eyes and lively danced between Marwi and Lebera in something not unlike amusement, and full lips quirked in a pleasantly sly smile. Vera brushed some of her hair from her face, in which one could see a hint of ruddy flush from the rising steam of the bath.

Marwi tried very hard not to gawk. Though she came from a noble family, herself, she had never seen Princess Vera in person, and all reputation seemed to fall well short of the reality.

There was a presence to Vera, or about her, that made those of less stubborn or assertive will feel naturally amenable to her desires. She was naturally commanding, and charismatic besides, as clever and well-spoken as she was handsome, able to wear down those around her with a raw, emanating pressure of majesty.

One could hardly compare her with her father. Malak IV was a respectable ruler, and he had done much to restore and strengthen Amal's position in the aftermath of his father's death, but he made his way chiefly on the merits of policy and inertia. He did not have that certain quality, that particular rare something that could win the sincere and undying devotion of his people.

He was unlike his father in that way. King Veng, whatever his follies, had been an immensely beloved leader in his time. It was only the force of his personality, his charismatic presence that made the people feel adamantly certain he would lead them right, that enabled Veng Atenan Urunwe to carry out his disastrous campaign.

Marwi had no personal experience with this, of course. It was well before her time. But her older relatives had more than once remarked, sometimes fondly and sometimes ruefully, depending on how much they'd had to drink, on how compelling had been the words of King Veng, how good and reasonable he'd managed to make his radical plans sound. And not much less rarely had she heard comparisons between Vera and Veng, if only in that one regard.

She had her grandfather's charisma, his force of personality, his wit and looks and dashing manner. But she did not, at least, seem to have Veng's volatile temperament, nor his comparatively bold and warlike disposition. That, her elders said, was a great relief. One such ruler had been enough to drain Amal's strength to its bare minimum. Another one so soon could very well destroy it completely.

But still it came back to Vera's stunning beauty, in the end; at least for Marwi. It was like looking at the statue of a queen carved in repose upon a fountain, regal and elegant, bearing a vessel that poured forth an endless tinkling stream. She was stunning, and Marwi marveled.

Then she spotted the other occupant of the baths, tall and broad shouldered, taller even than the princess, and a good deal more massive in the chest.

Marwi was far less disconcerted to see Captain Tzinte than she was to see the princess. His presence was something she might reasonably expect, since he was an officer stationed on the base, and this was a bath house generally reserved for the use of knights and knight captains. Still, she was mildly taken aback.

If nothing else, because it was odd to see _only_ two other people in the bath house. Although this could be explained, probably, by Princess Vera's presence.

Though, again, it was odd that _she_ should be here, who dwelt in the palatial Urumbe Kitaka with its many domes and spires, fountains like waterfalls that sprang from marble towers, gardens like jungles and flowerbeds like meadows. Surely there were far nicer baths in the king's mansions?

But Marwi shook herself from her thoughts, and stiffly she bent her body, bowing her head to the princess in a gesture of sincere obeisance.

She didn't want to seem rude or foolish, after all.

"H-Hello, your majesty!" she half stammered, half belted out in her nerves. "It is an honor to meet you, p-princess!"

Vera laughed, a soft and musical sound, and she smiled at Marwi and Lebera.

"No need to stand on formality, young one," she said warmly. "Once one has removed their garmets, a beggar and a baron have no difference, or so they say. But I think it's a good saying either way."

Marwi felt her face warm. Lebera chuckled, though, and she greeted the princess more comfortably, if not especially more informally.

"Hello, m'lady," she said, moving up and getting into the bath. "I'm surprised to see you here."

"Are you?" said Vera. "I wanted to see you, though."

"You didn't tell me it, then," said Lebera.

Marwi half cringed and half marveled at her mentor's borderline flippant altogether too informal courtesies. Part of her wanted to apologize on Lebera's behalf, while another part of her admired how coolly her master could talk to someone like Princess Vera. Both halves were agreed, though, that _she_ could never talk like this to the heir apparent of Malak Elarag Urunwe. She wasn't nearly so bold.

"No, I didn't," Vera languidly agreed, smiling pleasantly as though wholly unbothered by Lebera's tone. "But Tzinte and I were awaiting you, nonetheless. You have a good sense for when you're needed."

"Maybe," said Lebera, smiling. "But what do you need me for, if that's the case?"

Tzinte chortled at this, and he gestured vaguely.

"Some mad plot of hers, or other," he said lightly.

"Not _mad_ ," Vera sniffed.

She sounded surprisingly peeved, given that Marwi had taken the captain's tone to be as one of jest between kin. Compared to Lebera, Tzinte was much closer in standing of birth and family to that of Vera, not to mention that it was generally well known he was one of the princess's closest friends and confidants. Yet Vera seemed more vexed by his joking than by Lebera's unwitting discourtesy.

"It might be a little mad," Tzinte said, more seriously. "Also, very sensitive. I'm sure you're quite fond of your squire, Lebera, but do you think it might not be better for her to leave, just for now? We have serious matters to discuss. Rather high affairs."

"And you want _my_ input?" said Lebera dryly, quirking her lips. A little sarcastically, she said, "I am but a humble fighting man, lord. What do I know of such high and stately matters as you great people might debate in the bath?" Then, more seriously, she added: "Besides, how am I supposed to know whether it's fit for my squire to hear when I don't know what you want to talk about? And if it's so delicate that she ought to leave, then should you really be discussing it in such a... you know, _public_ _place_?"

"All fair points!" said Vera, laughing and flashing a bright smile. "But do not take your lover's words so literally. He oversells the affair. We merely debate matters of court, nothing truly _important_. It's not like we speak of ending the Endless War, or anything half so grave as that. 'Tis but a trifle we gnaw between our wits. Feel free to contribute, and feel no need to send off your squire! She's a very pretty thing, anyways."

Vera said this cheekily and unseriously, speaking in her typically good-humored mood. Nonetheless Marwi's face grew hot at these words, and she fidgeted self-consciously.

"Ah... oh, my. You f-flatter me, your majesty," she said softly.

"Haha, don't let her get to you, kid," said Lebera, lightly elbowing Marwi. "The princess just likes to tease. She enjoys getting under people's skin."

"It's not teasing if it's true," Vera said in a facetiously airy manner. "I've said the same of you, and I'll say it of your squire, too—you lot are wasted on the battlefield. You'd have it much safer as one of my ladies-in-waiting, and little less honorable would most deem such a post."

"And as I've said before, I'm just not into that sort of thing," Lebera said, waving a hand dismissively. "I don't think I'd like living as a courtier. But then, I _am_ only a commoner and an uncouth knight. Marwi is otherwise. She might actually enjoy that sort of career."

Saying this, Lebera looked at Marwi, whose face warmed even more at her master's close inspection than it had at the princess's flattering remarks.

"I... I wouldn't say that," Marwi mumbled, not entirely able meet either Vera or Lebera's eyes. She found herself staring into the distance, in the general direction of Tzinte's chest, though she didn't really register what it was she looked at. "I'm proud to be considered _inte_. As long as I can serve under you, master..."

Vera's eyes twinkled, and she laughed into her hand, looking mirthful but still mostly dignified. There was something knowing about her expression, too, and once her snickering had subsided she afforded the lesser nobleman a very sly smile.

"Oho, you don't say..."

"Don't tease, m'lady. Please," said Lebera, now using a little more formality in her speech, although some would still have called the tone of her address _rude_. "Marwi's a good kid: honest, diligent, respectful, and kind. She doesn't deserve that kind of treatment."

Marwi tensed at these words. The compliments pierced more keenly than arrows, and their impact stunned her worse than a waster to the head. Her face burned, and she smiled sheepishly, and averting her eyes completely from all else she stared bashfully into the bathwater.

"I treat her with perfect courtesy," said Vera haughtily, though she still smiled. "But, as I meant to say before we let ourselves get sidetracked by flirting with your apprentice—" (Marwi fidgeted at this and covered her face) "—apart from whether our discussion warrants the prudence of a private venue, I would say that the baths of Kartya's knights are not so public as you think. Most of the _mente_ and _aminte_ come from noble families already somewhat privy to what we discuss, and few would come here at this hour of the day, anyways. Not unless they were either shirking duty or here on summons."

" _I'm_ not shirking a thing," said Lebera a touch peevishly, crossing her arms over her breast.

"I didn't say you were," said Vera in a blandly conciliatory tone.

"I wasn't summoned, though."

"Weren't you?" Vera smiled. "Well, maybe not. But you still came when I desired your presence. That counts for something, don't you think?"

"Well, I won't say I disagree." Lebera shrugged. "But I can't say that I really _agree_ , either. I don't mean to send off Marwi, though."

"That's fine, that's fine," said Vera. "There was never any need, whatever your betrothed says. Is this not right, O, noble captain's lieutenant?"

She addressed this last sentence (spoken in a somewhat scathingly archaic mode) to Tzinte, who had been bathing silently for much of the recent talk, minding his own business and patiently waiting for the chatter to end. He cocked an eyebrow, looking askance at the her.

"If you insist," said Tzinte dryly. "I won't dispute you."

"No? That's a shame," Vera said. "I like proving myself right, and I like winning debates. But I can't do either if you won't play along. Rather impolite of you, I'd say."

Lebera chuckled, rolling her eyes.

Despite herself, Marwi nervously giggled, feeling slightly discomfited. In a situation like this she had no idea what to do, or what to say, or even exactly where to look. The presence of Princess Vera, whatever the woman's insistence of equality in the nude, made her acutely conscious of all those things that usually went unconsidered in the bath.

"It... it's okay," Marwi said nervously. "I can leave, if it would be a problem. I don't mean to impose."

"Nonsense!" Vera said, once more stubbornly crossing her arms. "The princess said you can stay, so you can _stay_."

Marwi squeaked, taken aback by the firmness of Vera's words. She nodded anxiously, and so rapidly, too, that it looked rather comical. Lebera gave her a comforting slap on the back at this, perhaps to calm her. Instead, she knocked the girl over.

Marwi toppled facefirst into the bathwater, momentarily stunned and imbalanced by the force of the impact. Thankfully, Lebera seized her shoulder, catching her and arresting her tumble before it could become an actual, serious fall. Thus it was only a minor pratfall and nothing that might have actually hurt the girl.

Nonetheless, Vera gave them a bemused look.

Tzinte shook his head and smiled. "You really _must_ learn to control your strength, love."

"I know how," Lebera said, only a tad sheepish. "And I was. I just... knocked her a little off balance, is all."

She gestured lamely.

"Yes," said Marwi, springing quickly and loyally to her master's defense. "I am fine, anyhow. It was only a little spill."

"Certainly, if that's what you want to say," said Vera, shrugging. "But back to the main topic. There is something I mean to ask you, Lebera. Tzinte and I had just been talking about how to broach the subject with you—but this seems like the best chance we'll get. So, Lebera... ... ... You've been an aminte for a while, now, haven't you?"

Lebera blinked. "What, me?" said she, cocking her head. She still had her hand on Marwi's shoulder, though the girl didn't seem too bothered. "Not that long, I don't think. It's only been... um... hey, when _did_ my apprenticeship end, Tzinte? I can't recall the date."

"I don't know about the date," Tzinte said. "But it's been ten years since you were formally knighted."

Lebera gave him an astonished look.

"What?!" she said. "No, that can't be right. Ten years? But I'm only..." She paused, blinking. "Oh, wow. _Yeah_ , I was seventeen when they pronounced me a journeyman. I remember now, because they said that was really early to finish it—my apprenticeship, that is—and I know I graduated Migilosa at fifteen, because it was right around my birthday, so there was a big to-do back home in Uchatya."

"I don't doubt it," said Vera pleasantly. "Knighthood is a great honor no matter whence you hail, and the second grain district of is not a place I think of as having very many great soldiers come out of it. That is only my impression, though."

" _Inte_ , maybe," Lebera said, shrugging. "Militiamen and recruits. There are plenty of that sort in the offskirts."

"But not _aminte_?" Vera said, glancing sidelong at Tzinte. "Nor _mente_ or _laimente_?"

"There are aminte out in the country, I know that," Lebera replied. "Whole families of knights who own good chunks of the land. I don't have anything to say against them, myself, though I know a few cousins who like to complain about the price of rent, and the taxes on their harvest."

"Yeah," said Tzinte, nodding. "A lot of land belongs either to knights or the king, and the knights are the king's subjects."

"Right, sure," said Lebera. She smiled absently, perhaps letting her mind briefly wander to a sunny field under the stone rimmed vault of heaven, or to mist-shrouded terrace farms in the dark of early morning. Or maybe she simply recalled past anecdotes or incidents involving old friends and distant kin. Shaking herself out of this a moment later, she then added: "And?"

Marwi looked at her master, and she frowned thoughtfully. It came into her mind that she knew what was meant by this talk, and she considered the position the woman stood in at present, relative to Tzinte and Princess Vera.

"You are aminte yourself, Lebera," said Vera. "You are a sworn knight of the Amma Urumbe, and of Vera Marale Urunwe in particular. You are aminte, but not _arninte_."

"I'm not sure I've heard that one before," said Lebera. " _Arn_ -inte? You mean, land-soldier?"

"A landed knight," said Tzinte. "That's what it means, in understanding. A soldier who is given land in reward for and proportionate to their service, and who in return for the promise of continued service is permitted to use that land. Some build homesteads, some lease it to others."

"Oh," Lebera said. "Is that what you mean? Yeah, I've never heard the term, but I think I know what you're talking about. But what's this have to do with me?"

"I think you've more than earned a plot of your own," Vera said. "I fully intend to award you and yours any piece of land you wish for. Any piece that is mine to give, at least."

Lebera's cheeks warmed, and she gestured abashedly.

"No, no, there's no need for that," she said. "I'll be marrying into Tzinte's family, won't I? I feel guilty enough marrying so far up. I don't need any tract of country for myself. I wouldn't have thought there was still any left for you to give, though."

"It's a contractual matter," said Vera. "Once a landed knight dies, the land defaults back to the lord—if the knight doesn't have a family to carry on the contract for them. If they do, then the family is allowed ten years to renew the contract. More, if they have a substantial history as knights. But if the time passes, and there is no sign that the family is either willing or able to continue honoring the agreement—fight for me, and I'll give you land; I give you land, and you'll fight for me—then they lose to rights of ownership.

"They can still live on the land, but they have to rent it from the state, so to speak. Of course, if and when that land is granted to another, it is entirely possible that the old family might be relocated, if the new landlord doesn't want them there. But people are usually able to work out their own deals on a case-by-case basis. Still, there are many choice parcels in the state's possession, and if not now as princess, then when I am queen I will be able to grant you whatever land you desire from among this. But you say you don't want it?"

"I don't need it. Not for myself," Lebera said. "Like I said, aren't I marrying Tzinte? It would be redundant to make me an arninte when I'm already joining one of the most prominent knight families in Amal."

"Fine. You don't want any tract or parcel of land for yourself. But you bring up another matter of some importance: you _are_ to marry Tzinte, by your own wish as much as his," Vera said. "But this isn't a simple thing that you can just do without fanfare."

"It doesn't have to be a big deal," Tzinte said.

"But it will be. It _will be_ , if the lords and ladies have a single say in it." Vera gave Tzinte and Lebera both rather piercing looks. "You two are my chosen, favored servants," she continued. "Your vote, Tzinte, is one I will count on in matters of state, when you have succeeded your uncle to the council of chiefs, and I have succeeded my father as high lord. Likewise you, Lebera, are a worthy champion and trusty advisor."

Marwi fidgeted, feeling both left out and relieved to no longer be the center of attention. Tzinte sighed and shook his head, clearly exasperated by this talk. Lebera shifted in the water, rising a little to cool herself in the open air, meeting the princess's glittering golden eyes with a twinge.

"Don't trust my advice," said Lebera wryly. "I'm just a half-hick from Uchatya who's a little good at swordplay and balenge. I don't have the wits or wisdom to contribute anything worth your notice, however good I might be at knocking heads."

"Humbug," scoffed Vera. "But, come! This isn't about teaching you to let up on the crushing humility. The point I'm _trying_ to make is that your wedding will come under a great deal of scrutiny from a number of powerful and important people, many of whom might be eager for any excuse to pass me over when my father passes on—a very long time from now, it ought to be hoped. But any hint of scandal or impropriety and people will latch onto it. They'll hold onto it for as long as they must."

"Who would want to pass you over?" said Lebera. "I don't know if there's anyone in the world who would make a better urumbe."

"Can't you guess?" said Vera. "But there are a great many such people, and they would all like to see the line of Urunwe ended with my father."

Marwi shifted in the bath, looking uncomfortable.

"Well, okay," Lebera said. "I understand that some nobles are stuffy and sour over your grandpa and the Ze'ai."

"Ah, yes," Vera said, wincing. "I was trying to avoid that."

"Oh! Uh, sorry," said Lebera. "I didn't mean to offend."

"No, it's not offensive," Vera said. "Or, _I'm_ not offended. But it's not a happy thing to ponder, either, as I'm sure you understand. The Ze'ai was, after all, one of the bloodiest and most disastrous campaigns in the history of Amal. It was, perhaps, the single most vain and futile attempt ever made to fight the langfolk, ending in hundreds of thousands of human deaths and the near complete expenditure of Amal's long-built strength. If people are bitter about it, they have excellent cause to be bitter. Hell, _I'm_ still bitter about it, and the thing happened twenty years before I was born!"

Lebera leaned forward and took Vera's hand, a wholly unpremeditated gesture of empathy. The princess did not take poorly to the presumption of this younger woman—a commoner, even if holding a knight's title and station—but rather indeed smiled and nodded, letting out a slow, weary sigh of a breath. Tzinte watched in mild bemusement.

"Sorry," Vera said. "I just had to vent a little."

"No problem, I get it," Lebera said. "But for what it's worth, I think it was a great thing. The Ze'ai, that is. Even if it failed, I think it was still a very valiant deed."

"A hollow compliment, but an earnest one." Vera smiled. "But I'm not really so upset about it, personally. It's just stressful and vexing to think about. Still, this kindness will hardly make me forget my point, Lebera!" She said this lightly, in an almost jokingly warning manner.

Lebera laughed. "Really? Darn. There's that moment of compassion wasted, then."

Both chuckled.

"Seriously, though," Vera said. "I love you, Lebera, and you are a dear friend, but we have procrastinated far too long on this matter. You've come up a long way in the world, many would say, but fame as a soldier will win you little respect among the nobility."

" _Nobility_ ," Lebera said. "A silly name for them. What makes that lot so noble, I wonder?"

"History, mostly," Tzinte dryly interjected. "They're families that have distinguished themselves time and again from the rest, and many of them count some of the greatest figures in the song and lore of Amal among their ancestors. Of course, they are also quick to tamp down any unwanted elements, which I'm sure has _never_ been abused to keep themselves at the top of the heap."

Marwi laughed weakly at this, and there was a touch of something guilty in her voice, although her own family were only minor nobility, and fairly young.

"Still," Vera continued. "That right there... it illustrates an essential part of our problem. You're a great fighter, Lebera, but a simply awful diplomat. You have very little particular delicacy of speech. That's fine for a mere inte, but you're going to be a nobleman eventually."

"Don't remind me," Lebera said, grimacing. "Ugh, I almost wish I'd left him to Dama-dear when I think about that. Almost."

"Funny," said Tzinte. "Most people would give up a limb or two for the easy life of a noble's wife."

"I'm not most people," Lebera replied. "And I don't much care about having an easy life. But I don't want to deal with _that_ sort of trouble: you know, all that fake courtesy rubbish. I'm not a high society kind of girl. Frankly, Tzinte, if I loved you any less, I'd drop you in an instant for a simple farmer's boy."

"Then you'd be marrying beneath yourself," said Vera, seeming mildly amused by this thought.

"Better than being called a digger after gold," Lebera said, shrugging good-humoredly. "But I suppose it's not that bad. I can see why a lot of people might wish they were in my position, at least, and I _am_ glad of these circumstances, even if not for all the same reasons that others might have. I'm not against learning manners, if it helps makes the marriage smoother."

"It's still a while off yet, of course," said Tzinte.

"Well, _of course_ ," said Lebera, grinning at him.

"To be fair," added Vera. "It's not like you have to become a perfect high society woman, either. The Mbengo are a warrior tribe, and to a lot of those delicate old money nobles their manners seem a touch rough or uncouth. People don't expect you to be some dainty, tittering princess."

" _U turinma 'turu kore?_ " said Lebera humorously, meaning: "And you, good princess?"

Marwi smiled despite herself at this cheeky address. Vera likewise beamed, if rather wholly 'in accord with her self and nature.

" _Lo hara, lo mena. Kala oturu a edo udhud,_ " answered the princess. "They can't stop it, and they can hardly expect otherwise. They just have to accept it."

Lebera chuckled.

" _Aa, dhu. Verava._ "


End file.
